WORKS ISSUED
TLbc Ibat^lu^t SocietiP
THE SUMA ORIENTAL OF TOME FIRES
AND
THE BOOK OF FRANCISCO RODRIGUES
SECOND SERIES
No. LXXXIX
ISSUED FOR 1944
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COUNCIL
OF
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY
1944
Sir William Foster, President.
The Right Hon. The Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, K.G., P.C., Vice^
President.
Admiral Sir William Goodenough, G.C.B., M.V.O., Vice-President.
James A. Williamson, Esq., D.Lit., Vice-President.
The Admiralty (L. G. Carr Laughton, Esq.).
J. N. L. Baker, Esq., M.A., B.Litt.
Sir Richard Burn, C.S.I.
The Guildhall Library (Raymond Smith, Esq.).
Professor V. T. Harlow, D.Litt.
A. R. Hinks, Esq., C.B.E., F.R.S.
G. H. T. Kimble, Esq., M.A.
Sir Gilbert Laithwaite, K.C.I.E., C.S.I.
Malcolm Letts, Esq., F.S.A.
Professor Kenneth Mason, M.C., R.E.
Walter Oakeshott, Esq., M.A.
N. M. Penzer, Esq., M.A., D.Litt.
Professor E. Prestage, D.Litt.
S. T. Sheppard, Esq.
Professor E. G. R. Taylor, D.Sc.
R. A. Wilson, Esq.
Edward Heawood, Esq., M.A., Treasurer.
Edward Lynam, Esq., D.Litt., M.R.I.A., F.S.A., Hon. Secretary
(British Museum, W.C.i).
The President )
The Treasurer ^Trustees.
Malcolm Letts, Esq., F.S.A.J
PLATE I
First page of Tomd Pires’ original letter from Malacca, to Afonso
de Albuquerque, loth Jan,, 1513
C?V'«- t'"’ ^.rr,^A"'e
V<7 \K>yi \A*r»J>B ^K«5)■ ^
wViiv -'co.^'.vv »-
,..r
C>VJ>- ‘•J-< Mi rx c ^
V.. 'y?, -
THE SUMA ORIENTAL
OF TOME FIRES
AN ACCOUNT OF THE EAST, FROM THE RED SEA
TO JAPAN, WRITTEN IN MALACCA AND INDIA IN
AND
THE BOOK OF
FRANCISCO RODRIGUES
RUTTER OF A VOYAGE IN THE RED SEA, NAUTICAL RULES,
ALMANACK AND MAPS, WRITTEN AND DRAWN IN THE
EAST BEFORE 1515
Translated from the Portuguese MS in the Bibliotheque
de la Chambre des Deputes^ Paris, and edited by
ARMANDO CORTESAO
VOLUME I
LONDON
PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY
1944
TO
CHARLES RALPH BOXER
A true friend, to whom the
history of the Portuguese in
the East owes so much
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW
CONTENTS
VOL. I
PAGE
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword xi
Introduction:
The Paris Codex xiii
Biographical Note on Tome Pires xviii
'The Suma Oriental Ixxii
The Pilot and Cartographer Francisco Rodrigues . . Ixxviii
The Book of Francisco Rodrigues .... Ixxxviii
The Suma Oriental of Tom^ Pires
Preface ........... i
First Book — Egypt to Cambay:
Egypt to Ormuz
Ormuz
Persia
Nodhakis ....
Rajputs
Cambay
Second Book — Cambay to Ceylon:
Deccan 4 ^
Goa 54
Kanara 6o
Narsinga 63
Malabar 65
Ceylon 84
Third Book — Bengal to Indo China:
Bengal
Arakan 95
Pegu 97
Siam
Burma ^
Camboia
Champa ^*2
Cochin China
19
21
31
32
33
VII
Vlll
CONTENTS
Fourth Book — China to Borneo: page
China ii6
LiuKiu 128
Japan 13 1
Borneo 132
Philippines 133
Fifth Book — Indian Archipelago:
Sumatra 135
Java 166
South-Eastern Islands 200
Banda, Ceram, Amboina 205
Moluccas 212
Central Islands 223
VOL. II
Sixth Book — of Malacca:
Early History 229
Neighbouring Lands 259
Native Administration 264
Trade 268
Portuguese Occupation 278
The Book of Francisco Rodrigues
Table of Contents 290
Red Sea Rutter 291
Nautical Rules 295
China Rutter 301
Original Portuguese Text
O Livro de Francisco Rodrigues 307
A SuMA Oriental de Tomi^ Pires 323
Appendixes
I. Letter ofTome Pires to King Manuel, 27 Jan. 1516 . 512
II. Brief Description of the Maps and Panoramic Draw-
ings contained in the Book of F rancisco Rodrigues . 519
III. List of Early Maps quoted in the Notes . . . 529
Bibliography 533
Index 541
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
VOL. I
plate facing page
I. Tome Fires’ letter to Afonso de Albuquerque
Frontispiece
II. Text of Francisco Rodrigues’ . . . xvi
III. Rodrigues’ map (fol. i8) of the West Coast of
Europe, etc. xvii
IV. Suma Oriental, text in Lisbon and Paris MSS . Ixiv
V. Rodrigues’ drawing (fol. 43) of Alor . . . Ixv
VI. Rodrigues’ Voyage to the Spice Islands . . Ixxx
VII. Rodrigues’ Voyage in the Red Sea . . . Ixxxi
VIII. Rodrigues’ drawing (fol. 58) of Sukur . . . Ixxxviii
IX. Rodrigues’ drawing (fol. 54) of Adunare . . Ixxxix
X. Ensemble of five Rodrigues’ drawings of Raja
Island xciv
XL Rodrigues’ map (fol. 26) of East Coast of Africa,
etc 16
XII. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 27) of N.E. Coast of Africa,
etc. ........ 17
XIII. The West Coast of India according to Fires . . 48
XIV. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 28) of the West Coast of
India, etc 49
XV. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 29) of Ceylon, Malacca, etc. . 88
XVI. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 33) of the Bay of Bengal . 89
XVII. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 34) of the Malay Peninsula,
etc. ........ 96
XVIII. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 30) of N.E. Coast of Suma-
tra, etc. . 97
XIX. Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 38) of the Gulf of Tong-
King 1 12
XX. Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 39) of South Coast of
China, efc. 113
XXL Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 40) of the Canton River,
etc. ........ 120
XXII. Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 41) of N.E. Coast of China,
etc 121
XXIII. Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 42) of Formosa . . 128
ix
X
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
PLATE FACING PAGE
XXIV. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 35) of Sumatra, Java, etc. . 129
XXV. Ensemble of three of Rodrigues’ drawings of
Sumbawa, etc 200
XXVI. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 36) of Borneo, Bali, etc. . 208
XXVII. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 37) of the Spice Islands, etc. 209
Outline Map of the East, showing Tome Fires’ itineraries and
the geographical names as mentioned in the Suma Oriental
In pocket
VOL. II
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVII.
XXXVIII.
XXXIX.
XL.
XLI.
XLII.
Frontispiece of Rodrigues’ Book . . Frontispiece
Malacca according to Fires 240
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 19) of N.W. Coast of Africa,
etc 241
Rodrigues’ figure for ‘Ascertaining the latitude’ . 296
F\g\xxt{xomt\it Regimento de Munich . . . 297
Compass-rose for measuring a degree in leagues . 304
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 20) of West Coast of Africa,
etc. ........ 305
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 2 1) of West Coast of Africa 352
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 22) of the Coast of Brasil,
etc. . . . . . . . . 353
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 23) of West Coast of Africa,
etc 416
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 24) of the Coast of South
Africa 417
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 25) showing St. Helena and
Tristan da Cunha 464
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 1 14) of the Western Medi-
terranean 465
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 115) of the Central Mediter-
ranean 522
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 116) of the Eastern Medi-
terranean and Black Sea .... 523
The East, from the Red Sea to Japan, as known to Francisco
Rodrigues In pocket
FOREWORD
W HEN I returned from Paris in 1937 and told Dr.
Edward Lynam, Hon. Secretary of the Hakluyt
Society, that I had just discovered the long-sought
codex containing the Suma Oriental of Tome Pires and the
Book of Francisco Rodrigues, he immediately suggested that I
should edit the manuscript for his Society. I gladly accepted, as
no other learned Society could so appropriately publish this
almost completely unknown work. Moreover the English, being
the principal heirs of the great Portuguese Eastern Empire, are
as much interested as the Portuguese in a document of such im-
portance for the history of the first regular contacts between
West and East.
The present study allows new light to be thrown on the first
official European Embassy to China and its leader. Tome Pires,
the extraordinary man who, after being apothecary to the un-
fortunate Prince Afonso, son of King John II, went to India in
1511 as ‘factor of the drugs’, lived for two and a half years in
newly-conquered Malacca, where he wrote most of the Suma
Oriental, and then was sent as ambassador to China, where he
died after some twenty years of varied and painful experiences.
Till now, little was known about Pires and his Embassy, and the
scanty information and scattered documents referring to both
had never been brought together.
War broke out when I had nearly finished the lengthy task of
typing and translating the whole manuscript. Not until 1942
could I continue my work. This is why I could not finish it as
early as promised to the Hakluyt Society and to the Inter-
national Congress of Geography of Amsterdam, in 1938, where
I presented a brief tentative report on the codex, and announced
my intention of editing it. The impossibility of working in Por-
tuguese Archives or in Paris to clear up doubtful points, and the
removal from the British Museum of much early material,
caused me considerable difficulties. Furthermore, when the
whole typescript was ready, war-time printing conditions forced
XI
Xll
FOREWORD
me to reduce my editorial work by about two-fifths. All this
accounts for some of the deficiencies in the present edition.
From MM. les Questeurs de la Chambre des Deputes I ob-
tained authorisation, dated 5th March 1938, for the publication
of the codex; this I here acknowledge with thanks. Without the
aid of many friends and correspondents I could hardly have
solved several of my problems. I wish to express my gratitude to
all who have assisted me. Besides Dr. Lynam, I am specially
grateful to Miss P. J. Radford for her varied assistance through-
out this work; to Miss M. Withers for her help in the translation
up to fol. 172; to Dr. H. Thomas, Keeper of Printed Books in
the British Museum, for much valuable advice, for help in the
translation from fol. 173 onwards, and for reading the Introduc-
tion and Notes; to Major C. R. Boxer, now a prisoner in Japa-
nese hands, for assistance and encouragement; to my learned
friend the Viscount de Lagoa for information supplied from
Lisbon; to Prof. E. Prestage for reading that part of the transla-
tion not seen by Dr. Thomas, and for valuable advice; to Prof.
C. A. Moule for guidance in all matters relating to China; to
Mr. G. R. Crone, Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society,
for much help; to Commandant D. Gernez, of the French Navy,
for help over Rodrigues’ Book) to Dr. J. Ramsbottom, Keeper of
Botany, Natural History Museum, for advice on all botanical
matters; to M. C. de la Ronciere, of the Bibliotheque National
de Paris, Prof. W. Simon of the School of Oriental Studies, Dr.
L. Giles, Mr. R. Pocock, F.R.S., Mr. J. E. Dandy of the Natural
History Museum, Sir Richard Burn, Mr. C. D. Ley, J. Frazao de
Vasconcelos, L. Reis Santos, Ad. Lopes Vieira, and my son
Eduardo Luis, for assistance in various ways; to the Staff of the
British Museum, especially Mr. J. A. Petherbridge, and of the
Royal Geographical Society’s Library and Map Room, espec-
ially Mr. G. Mackay, who has drawn all the illustrative maps.
Last but not least, I wish to acknowledge the support received
from the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning,
without which it might have been impossible for me to carry on
with this work.
London, August 1944.
A. Z. CORTESAO.
INTRODUCTION
THE PARIS CODEX
I T is surprising that such an important document for the his-
tory of geography as Tome Fires’ Suma Oriental — surely the
most important and complete account of the East produced
in the first half of the sixteenth century, though it was written in
15 12-15 — has lain forgotten and practically unnoticed until now;
the more so as incorporated with it in the same codex is the con-
temporary Book of Francisco Rodrigues with its precious maps
which became world-famous in the middle of the last century.
When the Viscount de Santarem reproduced in his last Atlas^
dated 1849, a series of twenty-six maps under the general title
Portulan dresse entre les annees 1524-1530 par Francisco Ro-
drigues, pilote Portugal, qui a fait le voyage aux Moluques, he did
not state where the maps were to be found. The Viscount de
Santarem died in 1856, but many of the notes he left on cosmo-
graphy and cartography, gathered in an almost life-long research
among European archives, mainly in Portugal and France, were
not published till 1919b In these notes, under the heading
‘Portulano de Francisco Rodrigues’, we find an extensive de-
scription of Rodrigues’ Book which ends with a very brief refer-
ence to Pires’ Suma Oriental. The description is not altogether
correct. It gives, however, a most important clue in a footnote,
which says that the codex belonged at the time the description
was written (1850) to the ‘Library of the National Assembly’,
Paris. In 1933 I wrote to Paris about this codex and was told
that it could not be found anywhere, though it might be in the
Bibliotheque Nationale, perhaps catalogued under some un-
recognizable titled. However, when I visited Paris later, I could
not find it in the Bibliotheque Nationale, nor in any of the other
public libraries where I searched. No one could trace it, and it
* Visconde de Santarem, Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, i, 148-56.
^ This vague information misled me into asserting in my Cartografia e
Cartdgrafos Portugueses dos Seculos XV e XVI (ll, 124), published in i 935 »
that the codex was in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
xiii
XIV
INTRODUCTION
was considered lost; but I did not give up, and when in Sep-
tember 1937 I returned to Paris, I was glad to find in the
volume Paris, Chamhre des Deputes of the Catalogue general des
Manuscrits des Bihliotheques Publiques de France, p. 471, the
following entry: ‘1248 (ED, 19). Journal de Francisco Roi’s,
pilote de la flotte portugaise, qui decouvrit les Molluques. Ou-
vrage divise en deux parties, la premiere remplie par des cartes,
la deuxieme contenant le texte proprement dit. Sur le plat
interieur est colle un ex-libris du chevalier de Fleurieu. XVIe
siecle. Papier. 178 feuillets et 124 pages. 380 sur 265 millim.
Rel. veau marbre, portant au dos le soleil de Fleurieu’. Rois is
the old or abbreviated spelling of Rodrigues. The description is
not very correct, as will be seen later, but it led me to the place
where the precious and long-sought codex lay in oblivion.
The volume is bound in gilt
f \ calf, and on the back is impressed
' the sun of the Fleurieu family;
/' ^ ^ inside the cover is the ex-libris of
‘Mr. le Cher- Je Fleurieu’, the
famous French hydrographer,
Comte de Fleurieu (1738-1810),
O a former owner of the codex. It is
obvious that it was bound while
in Fleurieu’s possession, and un-
fortunately it was badly cropped
in binding, part of the words in
some marginal notes or additions,
or in maps, and most of the origi-
nal numeration of the sheets,
having been cut away. The vol-
ume contains, besides 4 fly-
leaves, 178 folios of thick white
Watermark in the paper of paper measuring 263 by 377 mm.
Rodrigues’ Book, with the draw-
ings and maps all on the same
paper, occupies the first 1 16 folios; Pires’ Suma fills the other 62.
The paper of the 178 folios is all the same and bears the same
watermark.
INTRODUCTION
XV
On fol. 5r. is written the word Osorio in a later hand, probably
the signature of the famous Bishop D. Jeronimo Osorio, a
sixteenth-century historian and book-collector, apparently an
early owner of the codex^. Each MS has its original folio num-
eration, almost completely cut away when the volume was
bound; but traces of it can still be seen. Another numeration
was supplied, later, in Fires’ Suma, and a completely new one,
from I to 178, was added in a modern hand to the whole codex.
Santarem’s above-mentioned footnote says also; ‘It seems
that this precious MS belonged to the famous Bishop Osorio, a
great many of whose MSS were found by the English on board
a Portuguese ship, which they captured off the Azores and took
to England. Later it was acquired by M. de Fleurieu’. He adds
that this information was given to him by ‘M. Bliller, librarian of
the National Assembly’. I was unable to trace the origin of this
curious information.
' This supposition, though very likely, is merely conjectural, because — •
strange though it may appear — no document bearing the signature of Bishop
Osdrio has, so far, been found in Portuguese archives or anywhere else. D.
Jerdnimo Osorio was born in Lisbon in 1506 and died at Tavira in 1580. He
studied at the Universities of Salamanca, Paris and Bologna; in Paris he was a
companion of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In 1564 he was appointed Bishop of
Silves, after having been a Professor in the University of Coimbra. He was a
famous and learned writer and left numerous works, mainly in Latin; one of
the better known is De rebus Emmanuelis Regis Lusitaniae invictissimi virtute et
auspicio gestis libri duodecim, Olysippone 1571. There was another Jerdnimo
Osdrio (1545-1611), nephew of the former, who was a canon of the see of
Evora and also a book- collector. It has been said that when in 1596 the Earl
of Essex sacked Faro he took with him Bishop Osdrio ’s books, which he later
presented to the Bodleian Library. However, the bishop of Faro was then D.
Fernando Martins Mascarenhas. Essex ‘ “quarted hymself on the bushopes
howse”, and two days later set fire to the town and sailed for home; but he
saved the Bishop’s library, and in 1600 made a gift of some 200 volumes to the
Bodleian’. See the interesting article by Miss K. M. P[ogson], A Grand
Inquisitor, and his Library, published together with ‘A list of books presented
by the Earl of Essex in i6oo, still in the Bodleian’, in The Bodleian Quarterly
Record, iii, 239-44. Oxford 1922. J. B. Silva Lopes says that ‘among the spoil
that the English took with them, was the precious library of the Bishop
(Mascarenhas), composed of many books, a good part of which they say was
taken to the Library of Oxford, and among them there were many of the
learned D. Jerdnimo Osdrio’. Memorias para a Historia Ecclesiastica do Bis-
pado do Algarve, p. 369. Lisboa 1848. Among all the books presented by
Essex there is only one in manuscript; none of them seems to bear the
signature of Bishop Osdrio. See plate II.
XVI
INTRODUCTION
When referring to Tome Pires, Barbosa Machado says in his
Bibliotheca Lusitana that he wrote 'Summa Oriental comegando
do estreito do mar roxo ate a China^ Dedicado a D. Jodo III. fol.
M.S.’ This was perhaps an earlier copy than the Paris MS, as
will be seen later, in spite of the supposed dedication to King
John III, whose reign began in 1521. Actually Pires dedicated
the Suma to John Ill’s father. King Manuel I. There is no
doubt, however, that it was a different copy. Rodrigues’ was
written by himself, and Pires’ Suma is a contemporary copy,
which is evident not only from the early sixteenth-century hand-
writing, but also from the fact of the paper being exactly the
same in both MSS. Besides, the word Osorio on fol. 5r. of
Rodrigues’ Book is apparently in the same hand as the notes,
referring to the order of the folios, written on fols. i i8v., 124V.,
etc., of Pires’ Suma. It is probable that the two MSS were
assembled in the same codex by Rodrigues himself, or at least
in his time; they certainly were together when in Osorio’s
possession, before 1580. So the copy referred to by Barbosa
Machado could not have been the same, otherwise he would not
fail to mention Rodrigues and his Book, which he does not.
The Present Edition — Though the two works are very dis-
tinct in character — one a rutter, a nautical manual and an atlas,
the other a geographical, economical and historical account —
they are both very valuable, were written much about the same
time, have been together from an early date, and to some extent
complete each other. I am glad that the Council of the Hakluyt
Society agreed to publish them both together and to print the
original of the very difficult and etymologically very interesting
Portuguese text verbatim after the English version, which un-
doubtedly enhances the value of the present edition.
The present copy of Pires’ Suma is not the original he himself
wrote, and the copyist has left only too many instances of his
own carelessness. Pires’ style is far from clear, and this, added to
the transcriber’s mistakes and the most anarchic punctuation, or
absolute lack of it, makes the interpretation of the text often
extremely difficult; sometimes the translation has to be very
free, perhaps even more of a guess than anything else. I have
endeavoured, however, always to catch the real meaning of what
PLATE II
First paffe of text of the Book of Francisco Rodrigues, showing the
signature of Bishop D. Jeronimo Osorio (p. xv)
PLATE III
Rodrigues’ map (fol. i8) of the West Coast of Europe and th<*
British Isles (p. 519)
INTRODUCTION
XVll
Pires originally wrote, not only collating the Paris MS with
another copy and with Ramusio’s version of part of the Suma,
but also studying the context and other sources when available.
In all the most difficult cases I sought the help and advice of
such learned experts and scholars as Dr. Henry Thomas and
Prof. Edgar Prestage. Even so, I am not sure that it has always
been possible to reach the right interpretation; but the reader,
when in doubt, has the faithfully reproduced Portuguese text
for reference; from it he may attempt a better version. He will
find much matter for study and discussion. Here my limited
responsibility ends.
The greater importance and length of Pires’ work made it
advisable to print the English version before that of Rodrigues’
Book, reversing the order in which they occur in the codex.
When the two MSS were assembled together at an early date,
some folios of the Suma Oriental were misplaced, or for some
reason or other the text does not follow the order originally
intended by Tome Pires. All this has been adjusted in the
English version; but in the case of the Portuguese text, its actual
order and disposition in the Paris codex are faithfully kept. Both
in the English version and in the Portuguese text the numeration
of the folios is given as it appears in the Paris codex; this will
help the reader to find without difficulty the corresponding por-
tions in the English and the Portuguese. In annotating the text I
have tried not only to elucidate every obscure point, when pos-
sible, but also to explain or emphasize the importance of certain
passages for the history of geography; this will account for the
length of some of the notes.
Names of Eastern persons and places, the identification of
which is not always possible, are often given with such different
spellings in the Portuguese text that their rendering into English
becomes a complex problem. I decided, as a general rule, to
print Eastern names of persons, and their official posts, as they
occur in the Portuguese text, and to give explanations, and the
corresponding English forms, whenever possible, in footnotes.
As regards place-names, they are always given in the English
form in the translation, when they can be identified and there
is a corresponding English name; but the first time the name
^ H.C.S. I.
XVlll
INTRODUCTION
appears, and when it is repeated in a different form or much
in the text, the original Portuguese spelling follows in brae ets.
Before describing the Suma Oriental in detail, I now give
a biographical sketch of Tome Pires; then I deal with Francisco
Rodrigues and his Book in the same way.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON TOME PIRES
Tome Pires cuts a modest figure when compared with some of
the men who shine in the history of the Portuguese in the East
during the first half of the sixteenth century . Among those living
there at the time, Albuquerque, the great captain and admini-
strator, founder of an immense Empire, and Camoens, the
Prince of Portuguese Poets, who sang the glory of his country
and countrymen, are the greatest of all. Duarte Pacheco Pereira,
D. Joao de Castro and Antonio Galvao were famous as captains,
administrators and navigators or writers, Garcia da Orta as a
scientist, Gaspar Correia and Castanheda as chroniclers. Fernao
Mendes Pinto, whose Peregrinapao was published only thirty-
one years after his death, with several alterations, was the great-
est adventurer in Portuguese history, and has left us a wonderful
account of his marvellous adventures. Many others won im-
mortal fame as warriors, navigators or explorers. Even Duarte
Barbosa became world-famous, but his Book was written just
after Pires had finished the Suma Oriental, a much vaster work.
Barbosa’s Book, the original of which is lost, was soon translated
into Spanish and Italian, and was first published by Ramusio in
1550, becoming widely known, while only a less important
portion of Pires’ Suma reached Ramusio, who published it with-
out name of author, which he did not know.
Pires’ great work was lost and has been buried in oblivion
until now. The humble apothecary who arrived in India in 1 5 1 1 ,
and through his merits was chosen for the important post of
first Portuguese Ambassador to China, where he died probably
about 1540, has been practically forgotten, though his contribu-
tion to the early knowledge of the East is of the greatest histori-
cal importance. He is, however, a very interesting figure, and
the Suma Oriental, besides being the earliest extensive account
INTRODUCTION
XIX
of the East written by a Portuguese, is also the first European
description of Malasia, the detail of which was not surpassed, in
many respects, for more than a century or two. Tome Pires was
above all an eager observer, a keen and inquisitive student, and a
faithful, accurate and indefatigable describer; though his literary
style is poor, he cannot but occupy a remarkable place among
the early European writers on the East.
Sources — Data about Tome Pires’ life, from shortly after his
arrival in India till his death, are not scarce, though they are
rather incomplete; but for his life in Portugal there are only a
few vague references. All we know about him is contained in the
following: the present Suma Oriental, four letters written by
him, five other documents signed by him, one letter signed by
him and others, eight letters and another document by contem-
poraries who refer to him, and references in the chroniclers and
early writers. These are summarized below.
Pires’ letters: from Malacca, 7 Nov. 1512, to his brother Joao
Fernandes, published in Cartas de Afonso de Albuquerque, vol.
VII, pp. 58-60; from Malacca, 10 Jan. 1513b to Afonso de Albu-
querque, Ibid. 4-7; from Malacca, 10 Jan. 1513, to ‘Whoever
is in charge of appointing officials for Malacca’, Ibid., 66-7; from
Cochin, 27 Jan. 1516, to the King of Portugal. This last was
published for the first time in the Jornal da Sociedade Pharma-
ceutica Lusitana, tomo. ii, no. i, pp. 36 seqq. Lisbon, 1838;
then in Gazeta de Pharmacia, Lisbon, 1866; and again in Obras
Completas do Cardial Saraiva, vol. vi, pp. 419-28, Lisbon, 1875.
A translation of this extremely interesting document is given at
the end of vol. ii. Appendix ii, of the present work.
Other documents signed by Pires: document dated in Mal-
acca, 12 Nov. 1513, in which he appears as executor of the will
of his brother-in-law Diogo Lopes, Cartas, vii, 99; receipt in
Malacca, 24 Dec. 1513, Ibid., 107; receipt in Malacca, 12 Jan.
i^i\,Ibid., 112-13; receipt in Malacca, 5 May 1514, 121-2;
J This letter was published with the date 10 Jan. 1512. It refers, however,
to some events that happened months later, such as Pires’ auditing of the
accounts of Joao Freire, factor of Abreu’s fleet to the Spice Islands, who
returned to Malacca in December 1512, and also the intended attack of Pate
Units against Malacca, which took place at the beginning of January 1513
(see note pp. 151-2). See plate I.
XX INTRODUCTION
letter ‘To the King our Lord — from the officials of Malacca ,
7 Jan, 1514, signed by ‘the scriveners Pero Salgado, Tome Pires
and Garcia Chaym, and the factor Pero Pessoa’, Ibid., HI, 89-91.
Documents referring to Pires: an order of Rui de Brito, Cap-
tain of Malacca, 4 Nov. 1513, decreeing that Pires should
receive what was left by his dead brother-in-law. Ibid., vii, 97 >
letter from Afonso de Albuquerque to the King of Portugal,
Cannanore, 30 Nov. 1513, Ibid., i, 141-50; letter from Rui de
Brito, Captain of Malacca, to the King of Portugal, Malacca, 6
Jan. 1514, Ibid., ill, 91-7 and in Alguns Documentos da Torre do
Tombo, pp. 345-50; letter from Rui de Brito to Afonso de Albu-
querque, Malacca, 6 Jan, 1514, Cartas, iii, 216-31; letter from
Jorge de Albuquerque, Captain of Malacca, to the King of
Portugal, Malacca, 8 Jan, 1515, Ibid., iii, 133-9; letter from
Jorge de Albuquerque, Captain of Malacca, to the King of
Portugal, Malacca, i Jan. 1524, Ibid., iv, 35-42; two letters from
Cristovao Vieira and Vasco Calvo, Canton, 1524, and 10 Nov.
1524^ Later copies of these two letters, extant in the Biblio-
theque Nationale de Paris (Ponds Portugais, no.' 65)2, were pub-
lished — introduction, original text and translation — by Donald
Ferguson in the Indian Antiquary, Bombay, 190 1-2. In the
Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon, there are frag-
ments (Fragmentos, Ma9o 24) of the original of the first of
these two letters (in Chinese ink on Chinese paper), which were
published by Dr. E. A. Voretzsch in Boletim da Sociedade Luso-
Japonesa, no. i, Tokyo, 1929.
References in chronicles and early books: Caspar Correia,
Lendas da India, vol. ii, pp. 473, 528-9, 678, written in the
middle of the sixteenth century; Fernao Lopes de Castanheda,
Historia do Descobrimento da India pelos Portugueses, bk. iv,
chaps, iv and xxxi, bk. v, chap. Ixxx, ist ed. 1554; Joao de
Barros, Asia, Decada iii, bk. ii, chap. 8, bk. vi, chaps, i and 2,
* Although these two letters were published as dated 1534 1536, this
was a mistake, as will be shown farther on.
* The two letters of Vieira and Calvo are bound together with the MS of
the Chronica dos Reis de Bisnaga, published by David Lopes, Lisboa, 1897.
The compilation of this Chronica was ordered by Barros (cf. David Lopes’
Introduction, p. Ixi), and he utilized it as well as the two letters as a source of
information in the writing of the Third Decade of his Asia.
INTRODUCTION
XXI
and bk. viii, chap. 5, ist ed. 1563; Antonio Galvao, Tratado,
pp. 129-30, Hak. Soc. ed. (ist ed. 1563); Damiao de Gois,
Chronica do Felicissimo Rei Dorn Emanuel, pt. iv, chaps, xxiiii
and XXV, ist ed. 1567; Fernao Mendes Pinto, Peregrinagdo,
chaps. Ixv, xci and cxvi, ist ed. 1614; Manuel de Faria e Sousa,
Asia Portuguesa, tom. i, pt. iii, chaps. 3 and 6, and Appen-
dice, chap. 7, ist ed. 1666; Diogo Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca
Lusitana, s.v. Thome Fires, ist ed. 1752.
Before Arrival in India — Very little positive is known of
Tome Pires’ early life. Gaspar Correia informs us that Pires was
a son of the apothecary of King John II (1455-95), Casta-
nheda says that he had been apothecary of Prince Afonso. This
was probably the unfortunate son of John II, born 18 May 1475,
died 13 July 1491. There was also a Prince Afonso, seventh son
of King Manuel (1469-1521), born 23 April 1509^, but he was
not yet two years old when Pires went to India, and could
hardly be the Prince referred to by Castanheda.
Pires may have been in his early forties when he embarked for
India. In his letter of 10 Jan. 1513 to Afonso de Albuquerque,
he complains that Pero Pessoa, the new factor of Malacca
appointed after the death of Rui de Araujo, probably at the
beginning of January 1512, just before Pires’ arrival, was so
young that at first he did not want to serve as scrivener under
him. He says, in the same letter, that Malacca was so important
that he would like to see there ‘three or four men with white
beards to take care of the King of Portugal’s revenue’. This
shows that he was then no longer a young man. Prince Afonso
married in November 1490, when he was fifteen years old. Most
likely it was then that young Pires, son of the King’s apothecary,
was appointed as apothecary to the Prince. He could scarcely be
less than 22 or 23 when the Prince died in 1491. This is con-
firmed by Pires himself when, at the end of his description of the
Islands of Bachian, he says: ‘it must be quite twenty years that
I have been using the said leaves in Portugal’ (fol. 158V.). That
being so, Pires was bom circa 1468, was about 43 when he went
to India, and about 70 when he died perhaps a little before 1540.
• This Prince Afonso, who died 21 April 1540, was made a cardinal when
only eight years old.
XXll INTRODUCTION
In his letter of 7 Nov. 1512 to Joao Fernandes, his
blood’*, he also mentions his sister Isabel Fernandes, one
Godinha, perhaps his brother’s wife, and one Antonia, per aps
a niece, whom he distinguishes from his brother s wi e an
children’. He also refers to ‘Diogo Lopes my brother-in aw,
who eats, drinks and sleeps in my house, a very good knig t an
a very good man’. The way in which Pires refers to my hrot er-
in-law’ seems to indicate that Diogo Lopes was the brother of
his wife, whom he does not mention in the letter. Perhaps Pires
was a widower, and here we may possibly have the reason of his
departure for the East.
The letter is addressed to ‘Senhor Joao Fernandes, in front of
the Porta da Madalena, my brother’. It is possible that Pires had
lived there toO. The Porta da Madalena^ was not far from the
north-east corner of the old Terreiro do Pa9o, corresponding
more or less to the present Pra9a do Comercio, better known to
the British as Black Horse Square, near the end of Rua Nova
dos Mercadores, then the main commercial street of Lisbon,
approximately the present Rua do Comercio. There were several
apothecary’s shops in this street^, and it is not impossible that
one of them or some other near the place belonged to Pires or to
his brother, or to both. Faria e Sousa says that Tome Pires must
have been born in the Portuguese town of Leiria, because his
daughter, found by Femao Mendes Pinto in China in 1543,
had the name of that town as a surname. But this is mere con-
jecture^.
* There is nothing extraordinary in Pires’ using a different surname from
that used by his brother and sister. Instances of the kind are not unknown,
though they are not usual.
2 I was unable to find any other reference to the ‘Porta da Madalena’. It
must have corresponded to the old ‘Porta do Ferro’, also called ‘Porta da
Consola9ao’, which was in the present Largo de Santo Antdnio da S^, behind
the former Church of Madalena." Castilho, Lisboa Antiga, i, ii, 178 seqq.,
VI, 112 seqq.
3 Joao Brandao says in his Tratado da majestade, grandeza e abastatifa da
cidade da Lisboa, p. 82, that in 1552 there were nine apothecary’s shops in
Rua dos Mercadores.
♦ When Pires’ letter of 27 Jan. 1516 was published, D. Francisco de Sao
Luis (Cardeal Saraiva) asserted that he was ‘a native of Leiria’. This has no
more foundation than Faria e Sousa’s conclusion, on which it is probably
based.
INTRODUCTION
XXlll
In the same letter Pires refers twice to ‘Senhor Jorge de Vas-
concelos, to whom I owe as much, on account of the favours I
have received from him, as I owe you for reasons of blood’,
Jorge de Vasconcelos was the director or purveyor [provedor) of
the Casa da Mina e India, an establishment in which was
centred the administration of Portuguese affairs beyond the seas
— a forerunner of today’s Ministry for the Colonies. He also
says that he was enclosing a letter to Dr. Diogo Lopes, perhaps
the chief royal physician, with whom Pires might have been
connected after his service as apothecary to Prince Afonso. It is
only natural that Pires went to India under the protection of
these two important persons. In his two letters of lo Jan. 1513,
addressed to Albuquerque and to ‘Whoever is in charge of
appointing officials for Malacca’, Pires says that in Lisbon the
King — who wrote a letter to Albuquerque recommending him
for the first factorship available — had dispatched him as factor
of the drugs {feitor das drogarias), with 30,000 reals and 20 quin-
tals of drugs, at his choice, every year, counting from the day of
his embarkation in Lisbon, and three men to serve him, whom
he took with him to India. He was also in charge of a hotica
(supply of medicines), worth 4,000 or 5,000 reais, which was
being sent to India.
In India Before Going to Malacca — The fleet of six ships
under the command of D. Garcia de Noronha, a nephew of
Afonso de Albuquerque, sailed from Lisbon in March and April
1511. The one before this was a fleet of three ships, commanded
by Joao Serrao, which left Lisbon in August 1510; the next
afterwards left Lisbon in March 1512. One of the ships of D.
Garcia de Noronha’s fleet, Belem (‘which was one of the most
beautiful ships the seas have seen’, according to Barros), under
the command of Cristovao de Brito, sailed from Lisbon on 20
April and arrived at Cannanore on 8 Sept. I5II^ D. Aires da
Gama, brother of the Admiral D. Vasco da Gama, sailed at the
same time on the ship Piedade, but later he separated from
Cristovao de Brito’s ship, and after sighting Bhaktal on 7 Sept.
' Barros, ii, vi, 10. Castanheda (in, Ixxi) says that Cristdvao de Brito sailed
from Lisbon on 19 April 1511 and that he went first to Goa; Correia (ii, 197)
says that he arrived at Cannanore in August.
XXIV
INTRODUCTION
went to Cannanore'. Fires went to India on one of t ese ’
which, according to Barros, were the only two of D- ^
Noronha’s fleet to arrive in India that year of 1 5 ^ ^ ^
of 7 Nov. 1512 and 10 Jan. 1513 show that he had not een ong
in Cannanore when Albuquerque returned to Cochin at t e
beginning of February 1512, after the conquest of Malacca. In
the letters to his brother and to Albuquerque, Fires says that the
Governor-General had summoned him from Cannanore, where
he was ‘factor of the drugs’, to Cochin. In his letter of 27 Jan.
1516 to the King, Fires says: ‘The ships of Cristovao de Brito
and Dom Aires took to Fortugal a quantity of wormwood which
was bought by Joao Davila when I was still in Fortugal.’ These
ships loaded as soon as they arrived in India and were back in
Fortugal in August 1512. It is likely that the wormwood was not
bought much before it was sent to Fortugal, and if Fires was
still there at that time, and by the end of 15 ii was already in
India, he could not have come on any other ships than those of
Cristovao de Brito and D. Aires da Gama. It can be safely con-
cluded that Fires sailed from Lisbon on 20 April and arrived in
India on 8 Sept. 1 5 1 1 , or a day or two later2.
In his letter of 30 Nov. 1513 Albuquerque tells the King of
disturbances and irregularities on the part of some of the men he
had appointed as wardens of prizes of war (quadrilheiros) in
Malacca. In view of this he decided, as soon as he knew of it, to
send there ‘Tome Fires, apothecary of the Frince, because he
seems to me a diligent man, so that he, with Rui de Araujo
[whom Albuquerque had left as factor in Malacca] and the
Captain should make an enquiry into all that matter’. Fires sailed
from Cochin to Malacca on board the Santo Andre^, in company
with the ship Santo Cristo, in April or May 1512, after eight or
• Castanheda, iii, Ixxi. Correia (ii, 197) says that D. Aires da Gama arrived
at Cannanore three days after Cristdvao de Brito.
^ When Fires’ letter of 27 Jan. 1516 was published, D. Francisco de Sao
Luis said: ‘I believe he (Fires) went to India between 1512 and 1515.’ But this
is a mere and groundless supposition.
3 A vessel of 70 tons built in Cochin by Gon^alo Eanes. Cartas, in, 128,
355; V, 492. This vessel formed part of the fleet that in 1513 went to Java with
Fires as factor, and of the squadron that in 1516-17 took him to China. The
Santo Andre was lost in October 1518 when returning to Malacca. Barros,
III, ii, 8.
INTRODUCTION
XXV
nine months in India. From his letter of lo Jan. 1513 to Albu-
querque it seems that the two vessels met with bad weather just
off Cochin, and some cargo had to be thrown overboard, in-
cluding more than 400 cruzados worth of goods belonging to
Fires.
In Malacca. The Santo Cristo and the Santo Andre arrived
in Malacca in June or July, soon after the death of the factor Rui
de Araujo ^ The letter of 7 Nov. 1512 to his brother is the first
document we have about Fires’ stay in Malacca. In it he says:
T am in Malacca as scrivener and accountant (contador) of the
factory (feitoria) and controller {veador) of the drugs.’ He was
enjoying good health and he was already rich, ‘more than you
can imagine’, in spite of having more than 400 cruzados worth of
his goods thrown overboard on the Santo Andre, and the com-
plaints he made later, in the letter to Afonso de Albuquerque,
about his salary. He asked the latter for 50,000 reais more for his
services as scrivener, besides the 30,000 reais he already received
as factor or controller of the drugs. He complained also that he
had been most of the time in bed with fevers. ‘I have been very
ill, two months in bed’, he says, which shows that he had fallen
ill just after he had written to his brother. His brother-in-law,
Diogo Lopes, was living with him in November 1512, but on
4 Nov. 1513 he had already died and Fires was the executor of
his will.
On 6 Jan. 1514 Rui de Brito, Captain of Malacca, wrote to
King Manuel and to Afonso de Albuquerque telling them that
in March 1513 he had sent to Java a fleet of four ships to fetch
spices. The fleet was under the command of Joao Lopes de
Alvim. Three of the vessels {navios) were the Sdo Cristovdo, the
Santo Andre and a caravel, commanded respectively by Fran-
cisco de Melo, Martim Guedes and Joao da Silveira. ‘Tome
Fires, scrivener of this factory and its accountant, went as factor
of the fleet and to superintend the cargo’, adds Brito. It sailed
from Malacca on 14 March and returned on 22 June 1513 with
* In a letter written from Malacca to Albuquerque on 23 Feb. 1513, F. P.
Andrade says that the Santo Andre and Santo Cristo arrived during the
course of events that happened between the day of St. John (24 June) and
the day of St. James (26 July). Cartas, iii, 54-5.
XXvi INTRODUCTION
about 1,200 quintals of cloves^ From his description of Java
(fols. 148-55) — ‘as well as I have been able to examine and in-
vestigate, verifying my facts with many people’ — we see that
Fires visited the north coast of the island, at least from Cherimon
to Grisee. When referring to Baros, a port on the north-west
coast of Sumatra, he says; ‘I went behind this island a matter of
fifteen leagues.’ This was obviously a different voyage from that
to Java, but we do not know when it took place. Perhaps Fires
wrote or at least intended to write another book dealing with the
‘weights and measures in all the different places’ of the East, as
he seems to state when referring to the ‘Coins and weights of
Java’ (fol. 150V.); but if he did, the book is now lost.
Two documents of 12 Nov. and 24 Dec. 1513 and three others
of 7 Jan., 12 Jan., and 5 May 1514, show that Fires was then in
Malacca; on 27 Jan. 1515, the date of Ninachatu's death, he was
still there, as shown in the last page of the Suma^. But he must
have left for Cochin soon after that date. In his letter of 8 Jan.
1515 to King Manuel, Jorge de Albuquerque, the new Captain
of Malacca, mentions China and Cochin China, and the king-
doms of Siam, Borneo, Llucoes, and Tamjunpura, where is the
diamond-mine, ‘as Tome Fires is bringing all these things duly
explained.’ This refers of course to the Suma Oriental. It seems
that Fires sailed from Malacca at the same time as this letter,
immediately after the 27 Jan. 1515, in one of the two ships that
arrived in Cochin at the end of February. We know of the
arrival of these two ships through two documents dated 30 (wc)
February and 3 March 1515, in which Pero de Mascarenhas,
Captain of Cochin, orders some provisions to be supplied to
a boat {atalaia) he was sending to Goa with the news from
Malacca for Afonso de Albuquerque^.
' Castanheda (in, cxi) and Barros (iii, v, 6) say that Alvim went to Japara
to fetch some cloves salvaged from a junk shipwrecked there the year before,
when returning from the first Portuguese expedition to the Spice Islands.
See p. 521.
2 Pires says: ‘And if by chance I should not come before the presence of the
King our Lord, or of the Governor of the Indies’; ‘and that it is most impor-
tant for the Governor of the Indies to come without delay to Malacca in
force.’ This seems to imply that he was still writing in Malacca. See note
p. 287.
J Cartas, vi, 252-3.
INTRODUCTION
XXVll
Return to India and Embassy to China. From the above
quotation of Jorge de Albuquerque’s letter we see that Fires left
Malacca with the intention of returning to Portugal. But Fires’
fate was written otherwise in the Book of Destiny. Albuquerque
had sailed from Goa to Ormuz on2iFeb.i5i5 and only returned
about ten months later, to die before Goa on i6 December.
Meanwhile the new Governor- General of India, Lopo Soares
de Albergaria, had left Lisbon with a fleet of thirteen (or fifteen)
ships at the beginning of April, and arrived at Goa at the begin-
ning of September 1515. Thence he proceeded to Cannanore
and Cochin, where he arrived before the end of September.
With the new Governor came Femao Peres de Andrade, whom
the King sent as Captain-Major of a fleet to go from India ‘to
discover China’ and take a Portuguese ambassador there.
Castanheda informs us that ‘the King of Portugal did not send
any ambassador [from Portugal], because, thinking that the King
of China was near, he ordered Femao Peres to send there one of
his captains, or whoever he might choose. And the Governor
would not send anyone but this Tome Pires, whom he sent on
the advice of the noblemen and captains of India, because this
Tome Pires had been apothecary of the Prince Dom Afonso, and
was discreet and eager to learn, and because he would know
better than anyone else the dmgs there were in China’. On the
other hand Correia says that the Governor, who had gone again
to Goa and returned to Cochin in Febmary 1516, ‘dispatched
Femao Peres de Andrade to China according to the orders he
had brought; and he sent with him one Tome Pires, son of the
apothecary of King John, who was his great friend, and because
he was very pmdent, and very curious of knowing all things of
India’*. Thus it seems that the Governor was already an old
friend of Pires, a fact that must have influenced him in his
choice for such an important embassy, in spite of Pires being a
man of the people, as the chroniclers do not forget to emphasize.
He must have chosen Pires when he met him on his first arrival
* It is odd that Correia seems to have forgotten that Pires was already in the
East when he adds: ‘therefore he embarked and came with him (Andrade) on
this voyage of China, because in Portugal they talked great things about
China, which Tom6 Pires was anxious to learn and see, in order to write
about them, as indeed he did.’ ii, 473.
XXVlll
in
INTRODUCTION
Cochin at the end of September. By then Fires certainly was a
ve^ rich man, and he would have liked to return to Po^gal
ItZ an absence of nearly five years. But the idea of gomg to see
for himself that great and mysterious China, of which he had
heard SO much in Malacca, with new and exceptional possibilities
of increasing his wealth, must have attracted him powerfully.
Besides, he may have had a grievance against Albuquerque,
who used his abilities, but never raised him above the modest
post of scrivener, in spite of justified complaints and requests.
Albergaria was an enemy of Albuquerque and, according
to Correia, a friend of Fires, who perhaps had been strongly
recommended to him in Lisbon. By that time Fires had finished
or was finishing the Suma Oriental, which might have impressed
not only the new Governor, but also many of the ‘noblemen and
captains of India’ mentioned by Castanheda. It must also not be
forgotten that Fires, as well as his father, though men of humble
origin, had been intimately connected with the court, and cer-
tainly had more education than the great majority of the
Fortuguese noblemen then in India. In the letter to his brother.
Fires refers to the ‘pampering in which I was brought up and
spoiled’. Barros says: ‘the ambassador . . . was called Tome
Fires, whom Lopo Soares in India had chosen for that post.
And although he was not a man of very much quality, being an
apothecary, and serving in India to choose the drugs which
should come to this Kingdom, he was the most skilled for that
mission and the best fitted for it; for besides his distinction and
natural inclination to letters, according to his ability, and his
liberality and tact in negotiation, he was very curious in enquir-
ing and knowing things, and he had a lively mind for everything.’
Thus, the choice of the modest but clever, industrious, experi-
enced and well-brought-up Fires for the important post of
ambassador to unknown China seems less extraordinary than it
perhaps appeared to some later chroniclers^
* Os6rio, De rebus Emmanuelis, lib. xi, and Couto, Decada xil, v, 4, refer
to the embassy and the ambassador, but do not even mention his name. We
do not know whether the codex containing the Suma Oriental, now in Pans,
was in Bishop Osbrio’s possession when he wrote his famous book; but it
seems that it v as not, otherwise he might have shown more consideration for
Tomb Pires’ name.
INTRODUCTION
XXIX
Though Pires had left Malacca by the end of January 1515
with the idea of returning to Portugal, his very interesting letter
of 27 Jan. 1516 ‘about the drugs and where they grow’ shows
clearly that he no longer thought of going back so soon. From
this we can gather that before the Governor came again to
Cochin in February 1516, Pires already knew that he was going
to China.
From Cochin to Canton. As soon as Albergaria returned to
Cochin in February 1516 he despatched Fernao Peres de
Andrade to China with a fleet of four ships', in which went the
ambassador Tome Pires. The fleet called first at the port of
Pase, in Sumatra, where it would be joined by the ship of the
merchant Joannes Impole (Giovanni da Empoli), a Florentine in
the Portuguese service, which was there loading with pepper to
take to China. But Impole’s ship had caught fire and the cargo
was lost, so Andrade decided that, after calling at Malacca, he
would go to Bengal before going to China. However, the Cap-
tain of Malacca, Jorge de Brito, insisted that Andrade should go
to China with his fleet without delay, because he was worried
about Rafael Perestrelo, who had gone there the year before in a
junk with other Portuguese. Reluctantly, because the monsoon
was too advanced, Andrade sailed to China on 12 Aug. 15162 on
the ship Santa Barbara^ with Antonio Lobo Falcao in a caravel,
Manuel Falcao in another ship, and Duarte Coelho in a junk.
The fleet met adverse weather off the coast of Cochin China and
' G6is (iv, ii) tells us that Albergaria arrived in Cochin and at once
despatched Andrade to China; Barros (in, i, 2) says that Albergaria left
Cochin on 8 Feb. 1516 after despatching Andrade’s fleet to China; Galvao
(Hak. Soc. ed. p. 129) says that the fleet to China sailed from Cochin in April.
In a very interesting and still unpublished letter written from Malacca, lo
Aug. 1518, to King Manuel, Simao de Andrade says that when he arrived in
Goa, coming from the entrance of the Red Sea, on 20 Jan. 1516, he found
Albergaria there. Torre do Tombo, Gaveta 15, Ma90 17, no. 27. Nor are the
chroniclers very clear about the fleet’s composition. Barros (ii, ii, 6) says that
King Manuel had ordered that it should be of four sail equipped in India;
Correia (ll, 473) says that Andrade sailed from Cochin in company with
Simao de Alca^ova, Antonio Lobo Falcao and Jorge de Mascarenhas. How-
ever, Castanheda (iv, iiii) and G6is {ibid.) mention Falcao alone, ‘and the rest
of the company he should gather in Malacca.’
^ Almost all the chroniclers give this date, but Castanheda says that it
was 1 5 August.
XXX
INTRODUCTION
the ships were nearly lost. It was mid September and Andrade
decided to return to Malacca. The junk went to Siam, where
Duarte Coelho had been before; the other three vessels, after
taking in fresh water on the coast, sailed south by way of Pulo
Condore and Patani.
When Andrade arrived at Malacca he found Perestrelo back
from China with great profit. He decided to postpone the expe-
dition to Bengal, and in December went to Pase to load with
pepper in order to proceed to China as soon as the monsoon
permitted. In May he returned to Malacca where he found
that, Jorge de Brito having died, there was a great dispute be-
tween Nuno Vaz Pereira, Brito’s brother-in-law, and Antonio
Pacheco, Captain-Major of the Sea, as both wanted to succeed
as captain of the fortress. After vain efforts to reconcile them,
Andrade sailed from Malacca in June with a squadron of eight
ships. Castanheda describes it as follows: Andrade ‘commanded
the Espera, a ship of about zoo tons, Simao de Alca9ova the
Santa Cruz, Pero Soares the Santo Andre, Jorge de Mascarenhas
the Santiago, Jorge Botelho a junk of a Malacca merchant called
Curiaraja, Manuel de Araujo another junk of [the Malacca mer-
chant] Pulata, and Antonio Lobo Falcao a junk of his own; and
it was a fleet of seven sail that left for China’. Barros, however,
says that there was an eighth ship commanded by Martim
Guedesh
The squadron arrived at Tamdo or Turnon island^, about the
middle of the Canton River entrance, on 15 Aug. 1517, after
meeting a Chinese fleet cruising off the island as a protection
against the pirates. The Chinese shot at the Portuguese, without
doing any harm, however, and Andrade did not return the fire,
giving every demonstration of peace and friendliness. All the
chroniclers describe, sometimes at great length and with much
detail, what happened to Andrade and his squadron, from the
arrival at Tamdo till the ambassador Tome Pires was landed at
‘ Correia also says seven ships, Galvao and Sousa say eight, and Gdis and
Osdrio say nine. Gdis’ mistake is that he says that Duarte Coelho went in a
ship with Andrade; however, when Andrade arrived at Tamao, Coelho had
been there a month, having sailed directly from Siam where he had gone the
year before, when he parted from Andrade on the coast of Cochin China.
2 Lin Tin Island. See note p. 121.
INTRODUCTION
XXXI
Canton As soon as he cast anchor at Tamao, Andrade sent a
message to the captain of ‘the Chinese fleet which came barking
behind him’, in Barros’ picturesque words, ‘explaining who he
was and that he was bringing an Embassy of King Manuel of
Portugal his Lord to the King of China.’ The Chinese captain
welcomed Andrade and said that ‘through the Chinese who
went to Malacca he also had news of the good faith and chivalry
of the Portuguese’, advising him to address himself to the Pei-
wo (Pio) of Nan-t’ou, ‘a man with a post like that of Admiral
among us, which was the name of the office and not of the
person’ 2 . Andrade then sent a message to the Pei-wo — ^who at
the same time had sent a messenger to enquire from Andrade
who they were and what they wanted — to inform him ‘that the
principal reason of his coming was to bring an ambassador whom
the King of Portugal, whose captain he was, was sending to the
King of China with letters of peace and friendship, and he asked
for pilots to take the fleet to the city of Canton’. The Pei-wo
answered in very kind words, but stating that the permission
would have to come from the officials in Canton. After many
messages and delays, Andrade decided to wait no more and to
go to Canton with some of his ships, using the Chinese pilots he
had brought from Malacca. But as soon as the ships cleared the
port they were suddenly struck by a storm, and only with great
difficulty and much damage could they be saved. The Chinese
ashore refused any assistance for repairing the Portuguese ships,
but Andrade did as well as he could, and ‘embarked on the ship
of Martim Guedes, taking with him that of Jorge de Mascarenhas
and the boats of the other ships, all very well prepared for peace
as well as for war, and went to the port of Nan-t’ou, leaving
Simao de Alca90va as captain in charge of the other vessels. His
^ Correia, ii, 524 seqq.\ Castanheda, iv, xxviii— xxxi; Barros, iii, ii, 8; Gdis,
VI, xxiiii. The quotations that follow in the text are from Barros.
^ ‘The Pei-wo [an abbreviation of the title Pei-wo Tu-chih-hui, a military
commander whose chief function was to guard the coast against the depre-
dations of the Japanese pirates] at Nan-t’ou was empowered to examine all
ships that came to Canton . . . Pei-wo is pronounced pi-wo in the dialect of the
coastal district, and from pi-wo we have the form of Pio in Portuguese
accounts and manuscripts.’ T’ien-ts§ Chang, Sino Portuguese Trade from 1514
to 1644, p. 41. On Nan-t’ou, called Nantoo by Pires and Nanto by the
chroniclers, see note p. 121.
XXXll
INTRODUCTION
purpose was to send, from nearer the Pei-wo, his messages and
requests to be allowed to proceed to Canton, and if the permis-
sion was not given, he himself would take it’. Once at Nan-t’ou
he sent ashore Impole, with trumpeters and a bodyguard, press-
ing the Pei-wo to let him go to Canton with the ambassador.
After new delays Andrade ‘set sail, in view of which the Pei-wo
sent him pilots, who took the Portuguese ships to the city of
Canton, where they arrived near the end of September with all
the pomp and festivity he could manage’. The journey up the
river took three days, because Andrade did not want to travel at
night.
Arrival at Canton. About nineteen months had elapsed
since Pires sailed from Cochin before he arrived in front of
Canton — a voyage that, in favourable conditions, could be made
in about four months. The chroniclers do not tell us of Pires’
reactions to the delays, drawbacks and annoyances he suffered
during all these months, but one can well imagine his despera-
tion, impatience and anger. However, that was nothing com-
pared with what awaited him in China, though the first contacts
with the Chinese, through the Pei-wo of Nan-t’ou, must have
given him a foretaste of what was in store. It may also be
supposed that often Andrade sought Pires’ advice, and that they
acted in accord.
Displaying flags and firing a salute with all their artillery, the
Portuguese ships cast anchor off the main quay, before the
Huai-yiian post station^ The Pu-cheng-shih or Provincial
Treasurer, Wu T’ing-chii^, the highest Chinese authority then
in Canton, remonstrated against what he said were breaches of
the custom of the land on the part of the Portuguese, who
furthermore came without official consent. Andrade replied that
the firing of the artillery and the displaying of flags was due to
his ignorance, and intended as a mark of respect, and as for his
* This information is given by a contemporaneous Chinese account of
Andrade’s arrival at Canton in 1517. The account, published under the Ming
Dynasty in 1 62 1 in a rather confused and sometimes inaccurate manner, was
translated by W. F. Mayers, under the title First arrival of the Portuguese in
China, in Notes and Queries on China and Japan, i, 129-30. Hongkong 1868.
* Chang, op. cit., p. 42. The Pu-cheng-shih is Barros’ Puchancij and
Castanheda’s Puchaci.
INTRODUCTION
XXXlll
coming without consent, he explained that the Pei-wo had after
all given him permission to come and sent him pilots. The Pu-
cheng-shih was satisfied and, according to the Portuguese
chroniclers, sent a message to the ‘Governors’ of the city, the
Tutam, the Concam and the Chumpim}, who were absent. Mean-
while Andrade ordered that no Portuguese should go ashore and
no Chinese visitors should be allowed on board his ships. After
a short time the three high Chinese dignitaries arrived in Canton
on different days and with great ceremonial. An interview was
arranged with the Portuguese. Andrade sent ashore the factor of
the fleet, accompanied by a suite ‘of people in gala dress, and
preceded by trumpeters, in order to go with more pomp, as he
saw that the Chinese were very particular in this sort of thing’.
The factor told the Chinese ‘Governors’ how King Manuel of
Portugal, ‘wishing to know of and establish friendship with such
a great Prince as the King of China, had sent some ships under
the command of his Captain Fernao Peres de Andrade to bring
an Ambassador with letters and a present; that the King of
Portugal had ordered the Ambassador and the present to be
delivered to the “Governors” of Canton, who could send them to
the court where their King was. Andrade would return to India,
and next year another Captain would go there to take back the
said Ambassador, because by that time he might have accom-
plished his mission.’ The Chinese ‘Governors’ ‘replied with
many words of satisfaction . . . and regarding the Ambassador
* These are the names given by Barros; Castanheda calls them Tutao,
Conquao and Compim. The question as to what Chinese expressions are
meant by these old Portuguese versions has been a matter of controversy, and
it is still not quite settled. But according to Pelliot (Un ouvrage sur les
premiers temps de Macao, p. 64) it seems that they may correspond to Tu-
t’ang, Tsung-kuan and Tsung-ping. The meaning of these expressions, Prof.
A. C. Moule tells me, is: Tu-t'ang — properly an officer in the first department
of the Board of Censors, but also a title commonly given to a Viceroy {Tsung-
tu) or provincial Governor {Hsiin-fu); Tsung-ping — Brigadier- General, com-
mander of the troops in a district called CMn\ Tsung-kuan — commander of
the troops in a department (or county) or subdepartment, /« or chou\ the post
was often held by the civil governor of the area concerned. Dalgado deals
with these names, but his conclusions must be taken with all resen^e.
Glossdrio Luso-Asidtico, s.v. Tutao, Compim, Conquao. The Tutam or Vice-
roy was ‘Ch’6n Hsi-hsien, who then resided in Wu-chou in the present
province of Kwang-si’, Chang, p. 43.
C
H.C.S. I.
XXxiv INTRODUCTION
they would immediately see that he was lodged ashore, and as
soon as they received him they would write to their King asking
for instructions’. Accordingly Pires was disembarked with a
great thunder of artillery, and trumpets, and the men in gala
dress, the Ambassador being accompanied by seven Portuguese,
who remained with him to go on this embassy. They were taken
to their lodgings, which were some of the noblest houses in the
city, and the high officials soon came and visited the Ambassa-
dor.’ The lodgings were the same houses where the Super-
intendent of the Bureau of Trading-Junks, whose name was
Ying-hsiang, lived^ The present for the King of China, which
Correia says ‘should not be opened but in the presence of the
King’, was put in the same house under lock and key, this being
entrusted to Pires. The disembarkation of the embassy must
have been about the end of October 1517.
After declining several invitations to go ashore, Andrade took
leave of the ‘Governors’, because he had received news that the
Portuguese ships in Tamao had been attacked by the pirates,
though unsuccessfully, and because some of his people in the
ships in Canton were falling ill with fever and dysentry, and
nine of them had died, including Impole. This time the Chinese
helped fully to repair the Portuguese ships, and Andrade des-
patched Coelho in the junk to Malacca, where he arrived by the
end of March 1518, ‘with the news of how the Ambassador was
received, the friendship established with the “Governors” of
Canton, and how we were welcomed in those parts.’ At the same
time Jorge Mascarenhas was sent to discover the Liu Kiu
Islands. After reaching Chang-chou and Fukien, Mascarenhas
was called back by Andrade, because the latter had received
news from Malacca, where the help of his squadron was needed,
and because he knew from the ‘Governors’ of Canton that their
King had told them that they could send him the Ambassador
Tome Pires. Before leaving, Andrade made proclamations ‘that
if anybody had been injuried by or had anything owing to him
from a Portuguese, let him come to him (Andrade) to obtain all
satisfaction; which was much praised by the natives, and had
never before been seen amongst them’. Then Andrade set sail
* Chang, p. 44.
INTRODUCTION
XXXV
with all his squadron in September 1518b after nearly fourteen
months in China, and arrived at Malacca ‘very prosperous in
honour and wealth, things rarely secured together’, comments
Barros.
From Malacca Andrade went directly to India, and after one
year there he left in January 1520 for Lisbon, where he arrived
in July. Gois ends the chapter in which he describes this visit to
China by saying that Andrade went from Lisbon to Evora,
where the King and Queen then were, ‘who received him very
well, and the King asked him very often about the things of
China, and the other provinces of that region, listening to him
with much pleasure, because he was curious by nature to know
what happened throughout the world, in order to gather there-
from what was most convenient for the government of his
estate, kingdom and dominions.’ This shows the interest that
the detailed news of China, brought directly by Andrade and his
men, aroused in Portugal, and explains how the chroniclers had
so much material for their lengthy descriptions of Canton, the
arrival of Pires, and all that happened there with Andrade and
his squadron.
In Canton. Barros says that seven Portuguese remained with
Pires in Canton. In his letter, written in 1524 from Canton,
Cristovao Vieira informs us, however, that ‘the people that re-
mained in the company of Tome Pires’ were Duarte Fernandes,
Francisco de Budoia^, Cristovao- de Almeida, Pedro de Faria
and Jorge Alvares, all Portuguese; ‘myself, Cristovao Vieira, a
Persian from Ormuz’, twelve lads and five interpreters; i.e., five
Portuguese, one Lusitanized Persian and seventeen others.
In spite of the message sent by the ‘Governors’ of Canton to
Andrade, before he left Tamdo, that their King had told them
that they could send him the Portuguese Ambassador, Pires and
his suite had to wait in Canton for more than fifteen months.
Further on, Barros adds that ‘only after three messages from
Canton to the King, and after he had sent three other messages
* Correia says September, Castanheda the beginning of September,
Barros the end of September, and G6is says October.
* Further on spelt Bedois. I know no such name in Portuguese; it suggests
a copyist’s miswriting for ‘Bulhoes’, a not unusual name in Portugal, or
‘Budens’, a village near Lagos, in Algarve.
XXXVl
INTRODUCTION
to the “Governors” of the city, asking in great detail about our
affairs, did he give the order for the Ambassador to go . When
Andrade left Pires with the ‘Governors’ of Canton, he told them
that one year later another Portuguese Captain would come with
a fleet to fetch the Ambassador. Andrade arrived in India
about the end of 1518, and the new Governor, Diogo Lopes
de Sequeira, who took charge of his office on 27 Dec. 1518,
appointed Antonio Correia, his nephew, to go with a fleet to
China, obviously for the purpose of bringing back Tome Pires’
Embassy. But Simao de Andrade, a brother of Fernao Peres de
Andrade, had written to the King of Portugal the above-
mentioned letter of 10 Aug. 1518, dated from Malacca where he
was then Captain of the Sea, enumerating his services and asking
to be appointed captain of one of the fortresses of Malacca, Goa
or Ormuz, or to be awarded some other favour. This letter must
have followed together with the news brought from China by
the junk of Duarte Coelho which arrived at Malacca about the
end of March 1518. The King was certainly well impressed with
the successful visit of Fernao Peres de Andrade to China, and
though he did not appoint Simao de Andrade to any fortress, he
sent him a grant authorizing his going to China as captain of a
fleet after his brother’s return. Thus Simao de Andrade pro-
duced the royal grant and was sent to China instead of Antonio
Correia. In April 1519 he sailed with a ship from Cochin and
was joined in Malacca by three junks, the captains of which were
Jorge Botelho, Alvaro Fuzeiro and Francisco Rodrigues, all
under the command of Andrade. The small fleet arrived at
Tamao in August of the same year. Contrasting singularly with
his brother, Simao de Andrade was a man of not much tact and
the possessor of a temperamental and violent character, features
that the chroniclers do not fail to emphasize. His substitution for
Antonio Correia, a man better qualified for that mission, was the
small twist which sometimes happens in the trend of history,
and which became the principal cause of the unfortunate end of
Pires’ Embassy, and of all the misfortunes the Portuguese
suffered in China for more than thirty years.
Simao de Andrade expected, quite reasonably, that when he
arrived at Tamao he would find that Pires was back from the
INTRODUCTION
XXXVll
embassy to the ‘King of China’. Instead he ascertained that the
Ambassador had not even left Canton. Pires must have been
very annoyed with the unbearable Chinese delays, and naturally
complained to the Portuguese Captain. Accustomed to the pres-
tige and respect then enjoyed by the Portuguese in the East,
Andrade certainly resented deeply the Chinese behaviour and
took it as an affront to Portuguese pride. Not unnaturally, his
indignation and irritation would be very great. It no doubt
contributed to the state of mind which led to his regrettable
misconduct — a point overlooked as much by past as by present-
day historians, though it seems necessary for a sober judgement
on this often-discussed point of history. Referring to the delays
inflicted upon Pires’ embassy, Barros comments: ‘the majesty
of this Prince (the “King of China”) is such, and the affairs of
this kind so slow, mainly when foreign people are involved, for
all is cautions and subtleties, that much patience is needed on
the part of whoever has to wait for their dilatoriness.’ Patience
was not Simao de Andrade’s chief virtue, and he committed
several acts which the Chinese authorites considered as infringe-
ments of their laws, like the building of a fort of stone and wood
in TamaOy under the pretext of defence against the pirates, and
the erection of a gallows on which a seaman was hanged. We do
not know if these and other more reprehensible acts, such as the
buying of kidnapped Chinese children, were practised before
Pires left Canton for Peking, but no doubt they were portentous
and had a most unfortunate bearing on future events.
From Canton to Peking. Cristovao Vieira tells us, in his
letter of 1524, that Pires left Canton for Peking on 23 Jan. I520^
Though Barros utilized this letter for compiling his detailed
description of the embassy’s adventures in China, he received
information from other sources — one of them, perhaps, being
Pires himself. It may be taken for granted that Pires wrote
several times reporting the progress and events of his voyage
after he left Cochin and at least some of his letters reached India
* All these dates referring to Pires’ journey to Peking and back to Canton
are given by Vieira and were utilized by Barros. Gdis (iv, xxv) says, ob-
viously in error, that Simao de Andrade arrived at Tamao in Aug. 1518, and
that Pires left Canton in Oct. 1519 and arrived at Peking in Jan. 1520.
XXXviii INTRODUCTION
and Lisbon, Correia even says that Fires ‘in the time of the
Governor [D. Duarte de Menezes, who governed India from
January 1522 to December 1524J sent him [the Governor] a
book in which he gave an account of the riches and greatness of
the King of China, which appeared to be hardly credible’ (ii,
678). Unfortunately there is no trace of anything written by
Fires from China.
The embassy sailed up the river in three Chinese galleys, with
silken awnings and displaying Fortuguese flags. At the foot of
the mountain range north of Kwang-tung they left the boats and
proceeded through the Mei-ling pass in litters, on horseback
and afoot. Duarte Fernandes, one of Fires’ suite, died in these
mountains. From there Fires wrote to Simao de Andrade re-
porting on the progress of his journey. Thence they proceeded
northward to Nanking, where they arrived in May 1520. The
Emperor was in that city, but he would not receive the Fortu-
guese ambassador there, and sent him word to proceed to
Feking and wait there for his arrival. Through Vieira we know
that on the 2nd August letters were sent to Canton, which were
delivered to Jorge Botelho and Diogo Calvo in Tamao. Vasco
Calvo says that the letters were addressed to D. Aleixo de
Menezes, and that Jorge Alvares was asked to take them^ We do
not know the date of Fires’ arrival in Feking, but he was already
there when the Emperor entered the city in February 1521^.
While the Emperor was in Nanking, there arrived an ambassador
sent by the ex-king of Malacca to complain to his suzerain
against the Fortuguese ‘sea-robbers’ who had taken his king-
dom, and asking for help as he was the Emperor’s vassal. He
had brought one letter from his king, and at the same time
the Emperor received another letter from two mandarins of
Feking, and yet another from the mandarins of Canton piling up
complaints against the Fortuguese, mainly on account of the
* Fol. 130V. Though Calvo wrote Dom Estevao, this is a mistake for Dom
Aleixo, as will be seen below. Jorge Alvares could not have taken the letter
because he died in Tamao in 1521. He was the first Portuguese who went to
China, in 1513, and there he was buried in 1521, as I have shown elsewhere.
Expansao Portuguesa atraves do Pacifico, p. 164. See notes pp. 120, 283.
^ G6is (iv, xxv) says that Pires ‘spent four months in the way' from Canton
to Peking, but he is obviously referring to the time spent in actual travel.
INTRODUCTION
XXXIX
misdeeds of Simao de Andrade in Tamdo. Furthermore, Pires
had brought with him three letters for the Emperor from King
Manuel, Fernao Peres de Andrade and the ‘Governors’ of
Canton. Andrade’s letter had been mistranslated into Chinese
by the interpreters; they wrote according to the custom of the
country, saying among other things that the King of Portugal
wanted to be a vassal of the Emperor of China. The letter of the
Canton ‘Governors’ had been written and handed to Pires while
they were still under the good impression left by Fernao Peres
de Andrade. When the sealed letter of King Manuel was opened
and translated in the imperial palace, it was found that its spirit
was (of course) quite different from that of the letter written by
the interpreters in the name of Andrade*. The interpreters
accepted responsibility for Andrade’s letter, but an inquiry was
opened and all the members of the Embassy were ordered not to
approach the imperial palace. Though, according to Vieira, the
Emperor magnanimously said ‘these people do not know our
customs; gradually they will get to know them’, more charges,
some of them quite fantastic, were being brought against the
Portuguese. After telling us that one of the charges was that ‘we
bought kidnapped children of important people and ate them
roasted’, Barros comments: ‘They believe this to be true, as
being about people of whom they had never heard; and we were
the terror and fear of all that East, so it was not too much to
believe that we did such things, just as we too think of them and
other far-flung countries, about which we have but little know-
ledge.’ Some early Chinese historians go even so far as to give
vivid details of the price paid for the children and how they were
roasted^.
Meanwhile the Emperor Wu-tsung died three months after
his arrival in Peking, and was succeeded by Shih-tsung, a youth
of fourteen. The embassy was then ordered to withdraw from
the capital and return to Canton with the presents brought for
the Emperor, which were refused. Some high officials in the
court declared that the embassy was not genuine, and wanted
strong action taken against the Portuguese, maintaining that
• Vieira gives many details about all these letters. Op. cit., fol. 104.
^ Chang, p. 48.
INTRODUCTION
xl
they should die as spies; but their diplomatic status saved them
for the time being. However, according to Vieira, of the five
interpreters, one died of sickness and ‘the other four were
beheaded in Peking for having left the country and brought the
Portuguese to China’, and their servants were given as slaves to
the mandarins as having belonged to traitors.
Back in Canton. Finally Pires and his companions left
Peking on 22 May and arrived in Canton on 22 Sept. 1521.
Francisco de Budoia died during the journey. From Peking in-
structions were sent to Canton that the ambassador and his
suite should be kept in custody, and that only after the Portu-
guese had evacuated Malacca and returned it to its king, a
vassal of the Emperor of China, would the members of the
embassy be liberated.
In the meantime, after the departure of Simao de Andrade,
the ship MadalenUy which belonged to D. Nuno Manuel, coming
from Lisbon under the command of Diogo Calvo, arrived at
Tamdo with some other vessels from Malacca, among them the
junk of Jorge Alvares, which the year before could not sail with
Simao de Andrade’s fleet, because she had sprung a leak. When
the instructions issued from Peking against the Portuguese
arrived in Canton, together with the news of the death of the
Emperor, the Chinese seized Vasco Calvo, a brother of Diogo
Calvo, and other Portuguese who were in Canton trading ashore.
On 27 June 1521 Duarte Coelho arrived with two junks at
Tamdo. Besides capturing some of the Portuguese vessels, the
Chinese blockaded Diogo Calvo’s ship and four other Portu-
guese vessels in Tamdo with a large fleet of armed junks. A few
weeks later Ambrosio do Rego arrived with two other ships. As
many of the Portuguese crews had been killed in the fighting,
slaughtered afterwards or taken prisoners, by this time there
were not enough Portuguese for all the vessels, and thus Calvo,
Coelho and Rego resolved to abandon the junks in order the
better to man the three ships. They set sail on 7 September and
were attacked by the Chinese fleet, managing however to escape,
thanks to a providential gale which scattered the enemy junks,
and arrived at Malacca in October 1521. Vieira mentions other
junks which arrived in China with Portuguese aboard; all were
INTRODUCTION
xli
attacked, and the entire crews were killed fighting or were taken
prisoners and slaughtered later. From Diogo Calvo’s ship there
remained, besides Vasco Calvo, seven other Portuguese and four
servants, who escaped the slaughter because they said that they
belonged to Pires’ embassy. But many others died in prison,
some of hunger, many strangled, ‘after carrying boards stating
that they should die as sea-robbers’, one struck on the head with
a mallet, and others beaten to death.
Pires and his companions arrived at Canton a fortnight after
the three Portuguese ships had escaped from Tamao^ and they
found themselves in a most difficult position. They were immedi-
ately summoned to the presence of the Pochanci^^ and Pires was
told to write to the Portuguese in Malacca telling them to return
the country to its ex-king. Let Vieira describe for us what then
happened: ‘Tome Pires replied that he had not come for that
purpose, nor was it meet for him to discuss such a matter; that it
would be evident from the letter he had brought that he had
no knowledge of anything else. . . . With these questions he kept
us on our knees for four hours; and when he had tired himself
out, he sent each one back to the prison in which he was kept.
On 14 August 1522 the Pochanci put fetters on the hands of
Tome Pires, and on those of the company he put fetters, and
irons on their feet, the fetters soldered on their wrists; and they
took from us all the property that we had. Thus, with chains on
our necks, and through the city, they took us to the house of the
AnchacP. There they knocked off our fetters and put on us
stronger chains; on our legs fetters were soldered, and chains on
our necks; and from there they sent us to this prison. At the
entrance to this prison Antonio de Almeida died from the heavy
fetters that we bore; our arms were swollen, and our legs cut by
the tight chains. This, with a decision that two days afterwards
they would kill us. Before it was night, they put fetters once
more on Tome Pires and conducted him alone, barefoot and
without a cap, amid the bootings of boys, to the prison of
Kuang-chou-fu {Cancheufu), in order to see the goods that they
had taken from us, which had to be described; and the mandarin
* Pu-cheng-shih or Provincial Treasurer. Cf. Ferguson, p. 51.
^ An-ch’a-shih or Provincial Judge. Cf. Chang, p. 56.
INTRODUCTION
xlii
clerks who were present wrote down ten and stole three hundred
. . . The goods that they took from us were twenty quintals of
rhubarb, one thousand five hundred or six hundred rich pieces
of silk, a matter of four thousand silk handkerchiefs which the
Chinese call sheu-pa {xopas) of Nanking, and many fans, and
also three arrohas of musk in powder, one thousand three hun-
dred pods of musk, four thousand odd taels of silver and seventy
or eighty taels of gold and other pieces of silver, and all the
cloths, pieces of value, both Portuguese and Chinese, the pachak
of Jorge Botelho, incense, liquid storax, tortoise-shells, also
pepper and other triflesb These were delivered into the factory
of Kuang-chou-fu as the property of robbers. The present of
our Lord the King which he sent to the King of China is in the
factory of the Pochanci’ (fols. 106-7). Ferguson sums up thus:
‘After a farcical show of respect for the members of the embassy,
extending over ten months, these were all imprisoned, and the
whole of their property and the presents from the king of Portu-
gal to the emperor were confiscated, the lion’s share, as might be
expected, falling to the mandarins’^. Fernao Mendes Pinto tells
us that in 1541 he saw the mandarin of Nouday ‘mounted on a
good horse, with certain cuirasses of red velvet with gilt studs of
ancient date, which we afterwards learnt belonged to one Tome
Pires, whom the King Dom Manuel of glorious memory sent as
ambassador to China, in the ship of Fernao Peres de Andrade,
when Lopo Soares de Albergaria was governing the State of
India’ 3 .
Meanwhile from India, where the news of this state of affairs
had not yet arrived, another fleet of four ships under the com-
mand of Martim Afonso de Melo Coutinho sailed for China in
April 1522. Coutinho had left Lisbon just one year before, com-
missioned by Dom Manuel with a message of good-will to the
1 This is according to the Lisbon original fragments of Vieira’s letter.
Barros (in, vi, 2), following the Paris MS (ff. 106-7), gives a slightly different
list (see p. xlvi below) of the goods confiscated. But instead of saying, like
Vieira, that the goods were taken from them, he says that they were taken
from him (Pires). This alteration was perhaps the reason for Sousa’s unfair
comment (i, iii, 6). There would be nothing extraordinary in all those goods
belonging to Pires, who had already amassed a considerable fortune even
before going to China; and after all the goods did not belong exclusively to him.
2 Op. cit., pp. 18-19. ^ Peregrinagao, Lxv.
INTRODUCTION
xliii
Emperor of China, for which purpose he carried another am-
bassador with him. He arrived at Malacca in July and there he
learned of the misfortunes that had happened to the Portuguese
in China. Nevertheless he determined to continue his journey,
accompanied by another ship and a junk with Ambrosio do Rego
and Duarte Coelho, who reluctantly and only under pressure
from Jorge de Albuquerque, then Captain of Malacca, con-
sented to go back to China, where the year before they had had
a narrow escape, as seen above. Coutinho’s fleet of six sail left
Malacca on lo July and arrived at Tamdo in August 1522.
They were soon attacked by the Chinese fleet. The Portuguese
had many men killed and taken prisoners, two ships and the
junk were lost, and after vain efforts to re-establish relations
with the Cantonese authorities, Coutinho returned with the
other ships to Malacca, where he arrived in the middle of
October 1522. Though some chroniclers put the blame on the
Chinese, Chang quotes Chinese sources which assert that the
Portuguese should be held responsible for the outbreak of
hostilities ^
According to Vieira the mandarins again ordered that Pires
should write a letter to the King of Portugal, which the ambas-
sador of the ex-king of Malacca should take to Malacca, in order
that his country and people might be returned to their former
master; if a satisfactory reply did not come, the Portuguese
ambassador would not return. A draft letter in Chinese was sent
to the imprisoned Portuguese, from which they wrote three
letters, for King Manuel, the Governor of India and the Captain
of Malacca. These letters were delivered to the Cantonese
authorities on i Oct. 1522. The Malay ambassador was not
anxious to be the courier, nor was it easy to find another. At
last a junk with fifteen Malays and fifteen Chinese sailed from
Canton on 31 May 1523 and reached Patani. In his letter of
I Jan. 1524 to King Manuel, Jorge de Albuquerque, Captain of
Malacca, says that D. Sancho Henriques, Captain-major of the
Sea at Malacca, had gone to blockade Bintang at the beginning
of July 1523, and thence went to Patani with Ambrosio do Rego
and another ship to wait for a Portuguese junk that was in Siam,
^ Op. ciu, p. 59.
INTRODUCTION
xliv
‘and to learn news from China from the Chinese that come
there.’ Ambrosio do Rego returned first to Malacca with news,
which he learned from ‘an interpreter who acted between the
Chinese and Portuguese when they were at peace. He told him
that there were living [in Canton] from eight to thirteen Portu-
guese, and it was not certain how many, because one said eight
and another thirteen; and that they said that the ambassador
Tome Pires was still living. A message came to the king of Bin-
tang from his ambassador [in Canton], and the man who brought
it soon returned. The report which the king of Bintang was
spreading in the country is that the Chinese intended to come
against Malacca. This is not very certain, though there are
things that may happen. If they come, they will do great harm,
unless the Captain-major [of India] shall come in time, as I am
writing to him. However, in my opinion they will not do so, as
they also say in China that they desire peace with us’*. This
document sheds some light on the matter. It is obvious that the
three letters brought in the junk from Canton never reached
their destination, being very probably retained by agents of the
ex-king of Malacca, a master intriguer who had plenty of reasons
for hating the Portuguese, and perhaps even Pires in particular.
The man who brought a message to the king of Bintang ‘soon
returned’, says Jorge de Albuquerque. Vieira tells us that the
junk ‘returned with a message from the king of Malacca, and
reached Canton on the 5th September’ (fol. i lov.). We do not
know what the message was, but we may well guess, for, as
Vieira states, ‘On the day of St. Nicholas [6 Dec.] in the year
1522 they put boards on them [the Portuguese prisoners] with
the sentence that they should die and be exposed in pillories as
robbers. The sentences said: “Petty sea robbers sent by the great
robber falsely; they come to spy out our country; let them die in
pillories as robbers.” A report was sent to the king according to
the information of the mandarins, and the king confirmed the
sentence. On 23 Sept. 1523 these twenty- three persons were
each one cut in pieces, to wit, heads, legs, arms, and their private
members placed in their mouths, the trunk of the body being
divided into two pieces round the belly. In the streets of Canton,
* Cartas, iv, 41-2.
INTRODUCTION
xlv
outside the walls, in the suburbs, through the principal streets
they were put to death, at distances of one crossbow shot from
one another, that all might see them, both those of Canton and
those of the environs, in order to give them to understand that
they thought nothing of the Portuguese, so that the people
might not talk about Portuguese. Thus our ships were captured
through two captains not agreeing, and so all in the ships were
taken, they were all killed, and their heads and private members
were carried on the backs of the Portuguese in front of the
mandarins of Canton with the playing of musical instruments
and rejoicing, were exhibited suspended in the streets, and were
then thrown into the dunghills. And from henceforward it was
resolved not to allow any more Portuguese into the country nor
other strangers’ (fol. 109).
Vieira’s letter, probably finished in November 1524, says that
of all the Portuguese only he and Vasco Calvo were still alive,
and that ‘Tome Pires died here of sickness in the year 1524 in
May’. This date, however, cannot be accepted without much
reserve, as we shall see.
Vieira’s and Calvo’s Letters. The copies of the two letters
from Cristovao Vieira and Vasco Calvo extant in the Biblio-
theque Nationale in Paris were probably made in the second
half of the sixteenth century. Though the letters in these copies
are dated 1534 and 10 Nov. 1536, it is not difficult to show that
they were both written in 1524, Vieira’s being finished just a little
before Calvo finished his on the loth November. The two letters,
besides being very important for the study of Pires’ biography,
are outstanding documents in the history of the first European
relations with China; the date at which they were written is there-
fore important, and it is time that this point was cleared up.
In the first place neither of the letters refers to any event later
than 1524; it is extremely unlikely that during the ten or twelve
years between 1524 and the supposed dates of the letters nothing
worth mentioning had happened. There are two points in the
letters suggesting that they were written after 1524, but they are
copyist’s mistakes. In Vieira’s letter it is stated: ‘In the year
1524 they equipped a fleet of salt junks which they took by force;
and until the year 1528 they prepared fleets’ (fol. ii8v.). 1528 is
INTRODUCTION
xlvi
a copyist’s mistake for 1523. Further on Vieira asks for a Portu-
guese fleet to be sent to China, and adds: ‘The first thing will be
to destroy the [Chinese] fleet if they should have one, which I
believe they have not’ (fol. i22v.). Similar mistakes are frequent
in the letter. For instance, the heading of Vieira’s letter says
that Fernao Peres de Andrade reached China in 1520, though he
arrived in 1517. On fol. io8v. it is stated that Martim Afonso de
Melo Coutinho went from Malacca to China in 1521, but in
fol. 1 21 it is correctly said that he arrived in 1522. In the Paris
copy it is said that among the goods taken from the Portuguese
by the Chinese were ‘three thousand and odd pods of musk, four
thousand five hundred taels of silver’ (fol. 107), but in the Lis-
bon original fragments it reads ‘one thousand three hundred
pods of musk, four thousand and odd’ [taels of silver]. The
Paris copy states that ‘sixty died in the ship’ (fol. io8v.), while
the Lisbon fragments say correctly that ‘seven died in the ship’.
Where the Paris copy says ‘On the 23rd of September 1523 these
twenty-four persons’ (fol. 109), the Lisbon fragments say ‘On the
24th September 1523 these 24 persons’. Where the Paris copy
says ‘thirty leagues’ (fol. ii2v.) the Lisbon fragments say ‘forty
leagues’. Where the Paris copy says ‘some eight to ten leagues’
(fol. 1 13), the Lisbon fragments say ‘twenty to thirty leagues’.
The other point is in Calvo’s letter: ‘Let these letters. Sir,
be shown to the captains-major; let them not be kept secret. Sir;
for if Jorge Alvares had shown the letters that he took to Dom
Estevao and they had known about us, I am confident that we
should not have remained here in this prison either dead or alive.
Within two years either the governor would have sent, or from
Malacca something would have been ordered by means of which
we should have been rescued from here’ (fol. 130V). Ferguson'
thought that this ‘Dom Estevao’ was Dom Estevao da Gama,
the son of Dom Vasco da Gama, who in 1534 was captain of
Malacca and in 1540-2 was Governor General of India. But
there is another mistake here: the copyist wrote ‘Dom Estevao’
where the original must have had ‘Dom Aleixo’. Dom Aleixo de
Menezes, nephew of the Governor- General Lopo Soares de
Albergaria, went with a fleet to Malacca in 1518 and in 1520 he
’ Op. cit., pp. 29 and 157.
INTRODUCTION
xlvii
was acting Governor- General of India while the Governor-
General Diogo de Sequeira went to the Red Sea'. In 1521 Dorn
Aleixo was in Cochin where he despatched several ships for
Malacca and China, among which probably was the ship of
Diogo Calvo that arrived at Tamao in 1521. There was not then
any ‘Dom Estevao’ in India to whom letters could have been
sent. The letters in question may be those written 2 Aug. 1520
from Nanking, or Peking, mentioned above, and perhaps some
more written by Vasco Calvo from Canton. The reference to
Jorge Alvares, who died 8 July 1521 in Tamao (a fact unknown
to Calvo), as taking the letters to ‘Dom Estevao’ (da Gama) who
arrived for the first time in India ii Sept. 1524, is an insuper-
able anachronism. Many similar mistakes were committed by
the copyist. For instance, in the heading of Vieira’s letter he
wrote that it is from Critovao Vieira and Vasco Calvo, and in the
heading of Calvo’s letter he wrote that it is from Cristdvao
Vieira. A collation of the Paris copy with the Lisbon original
fragments of Vieira’s letter reveals many such mistakes.
In the above quoted passage Calvo shows his surprise because
within two years nothing had been done to rescue him and his
fellow prisoners. It is obvious that he referred to letters written
after he had been made a prisoner, which he reckoned were
received in 1522; thus he was writing in 1524. There is evidence
in his letter that he wrote at the same time as Vieira: ‘where
Cristdvao Vieira writes’ (fol. 132V.), he says; ‘as Cristdvao
Vieira relates in these letters’ (fol. 133); ‘proposals after the
tenor of those set forth in the letters of Cristovao Vieira’ (fol.
134V.); ‘Cristdvao Vieira has written with one of our pens’
(fol. 135V.). Other points in the letter might be interpreted as
confirming the dates of 1534 and 1536; their careful examina-
tion, however, shows that they do not contradict the date 1524.
Above all there is Barros’ testimony. There is no doubt that the
’ Barros, iii, iii, 10. In a letter written from Cochin, 2 Nov. 1520, to King
Manuel, the Auditor of India, Pedro Gomes Teixeira, says that during
Sequeira’s absence the government was divided between ‘Dom Aleixo, in
charge of the finance and administration of the sea, and Captain Rui de Melo,
in charge of the people ashore’. This important and lengthy document was
published for the first time by A. Cortesao and H. Thomas, Carta das Novas,
pp. 127-38.
xlviii
INTRODUCTION
chronicler utilized the two letters in the composition of the
chapters in which he describes these events. It is Barros himself
who says; ‘And according to the two letters that we received two
or three years later (after the return of Fires to Canton and his
imprisonment) from these two men, Vasco Calvo and Cristovao
Vieira, who were in prison in Canton.’ This is quite positive,
and coupled with the evidence contained in the letters them-
selves, leaves no doubt about their date; they were both written
in 1524 and perhaps both finished in November; the dates 1534
and 1536 are the copyist’s mistake.
It is surprising that Ferguson, after translating and editing
the two letters so carefully, did not notice that their dates could
not be 1534 and 1536, though he expresses amazement at some
of the anachronisms and incongruities above mentioned, which
he tried in vain to explain or could not understand at all. Neither
have those who consulted and quoted Ferguson’s work noticed
or mentioned them.
After 1524. Though Vieira says that ‘Pero de Freitas in this
prison and Tome Fires died of sickness in the year 1524 in May’
(fol. 1 12), he asks further on for a Portuguese fleet of ten or fif-
teen ships to be sent to China, and that its captain should write
to the Chinese authorities demanding the release of Tome Fires
— ‘Let the ambassador be sent to me before I arrive in Canton’
(fol. 123). This, however, might have meant that the Portuguese
captain was to pretend that he did not know of Fires’ death. It
may also be that the sentence was badly written or badly copied,
as in many other instances, and that its true meaning was —
‘Pero de Freitas was in this prison with Tome Fires, and he
(Pero de Freitas) died here of sickness. . . .’ But the more likely
meaning is — ‘Pero de Freitas died in this prison, and Tome
Pires died of sickness [somewhere else] in May 1524.’ As a
matter of fact Vieira shows in other parts of the letter that he
seemed convinced that Pires was dead.
Only Vieira refers, and not very clearly, to Pires’ death in
1524. Barros says that after Coutinho’s ship escaped from
TamaOy the Chinese ‘made many of our people prisoners’, and
that ‘they finally killed Tome Pires, and also those taken
prisoner with him, and total war then existed between us and
INTRODUCTION
xlix
them. And according to what some of our people afterwards
wrote, more died of hunger in prison and the bad treatment they
received there, than by condemnation.’ The executions took
place only after the confirmation from the Emperor had arrived
at Canton in September 1523. Though Barros is obviously
referring to Vieira’s letter, he does not mention the date of
Fires’ death. Castanheda, who at the time was in India, says that
the King of China ‘ordered the arrest of our ambassador and
those who were with him, and ordered that they should be kept
separated from one another, and that all their goods should be
confiscated; and some say that the ambassador fell ill with grief
and died; and others say that he died by poison. And because I
was not able to learn the particulars of these [events], I relate it
briefly in this manner.’ However, Correia, who for almost all
those years was also in India, says quite positively — ‘It was the
King (of China)’s pleasure to order the arrest of our ambas-
sador, and that he should be taken to another town, where he
lived for a long time {e leuar a outra terra etn que esteue muyto
tempo), till it should be the King’s pleasure to speak to him; but
he never more let him come back, and there he died.’
Now Fernao Mendes Pinto says in the Peregrinafdo (xci)
that when in 1543 he passed through the town of Sampitay, on
his way from Nanking to Peking, he met a Christian woman
who, after showing a cross tattooed on her arm and inviting him
and his companions to her house, told them ‘that her name was
Ines de Leiria, and that her father was called Tome Pires, who
went from this kingdom [i.e. Portugal] as ambassador to the
King of China, but because of a disturbance that a captain of
ours made in Canton the Chinese regarded him as a spy and not
as an ambassador as he said, and seized him with twelve other
men he had with him, and after they had sentenced them and
subjected them to many floggings and tortures, of which five
soon died, they banished the others, separated from one
another, to divers places, where they died devoured by lice;
only one of them was living, who was called Vasco Calvo, a
native of a place in our country named Alcochete, for so she had
many times heard from her father, shedding many tears when
he spoke of this. And that it chanced to her father to be banished
^ H.C.S. I.
1
INTRODUCTION
to that district where he married her mother, because she had
some property of her own, and made her a Christian; and during
the whole twenty-seven years that he abode there married to her
they both lived very catholically, converting many heathen to
the faith of Christa’ When living in Almada, opposite Lisbon,
on the other side of the Tagus, Pinto was visited in October 1582
by the Jesuits G. Maffei, J. Rebelo and G. Gon9alves, who went
to gather from him some information about China and Japan.
Maffei left a note recording the conversation they had with
Pinto, in which, among other things, we read — ‘He says that
there are some other traces of Christianity in China, which are
relics of Tome Pires, the first ambassador to go there and who
died in China, and of his companions. He says that a daughter
of [one of] these [men]^ in memory of her father’s Christianity
had a cross tattooed on her arm near her hand, and when she met
some Portuguese she tucked up her sleeve and showed the cross,
saying in Portuguese the only part she knew of the Paternoster,
which produced amazement and tears on either side. She was
rich and sheltered them in her house. Of the same company
there was also in the city of Kwang-si {Cansi), before it was
destroyed by the Tartars, a certain Portuguese married to a
Chinese woman with four children.’ Pinto describes also how in
1544 he encountered in the town of Quansi, not far from Peking,
an old man who, after some incidents, told him: ‘I am, my
brother, a poor Portuguese Christian, by name Vasco Calvo,
brother of Diogo Calvo who was captain of the ship of D. Nuno
Manuel, a native of Alcochete; and it is now twenty-seven years
since I was made a captive with Tome Pires, whom Lopo Soares
sent as ambassador to this Chinese King, and who afterwards
came to a disastrous end due to a disturbance of a Portuguese
captain’ . . . Then ‘he began again telling me about all his life,
' Peregrinafdo, cxvi.
^ The Portuguese rendering is not very clear. Though it is not expressly
stated here that the father was Pires, the Peregrinagdo is quite positive on the
subject. This note was found by the learned Orientalist Rev. G. Schur-
hammer, S.J., among Maffei ’s papers in an archive of the Society of Jesus.
Schurhammer published it for the first time under the title Um documento
inedito sobre Fernao Mendes Pinto in Revista de Historia, xiii, 8i-8, Lisboa
1924, and then translated it into German in his work Fernao Mendez Pinto
und seine ‘ Peregrinagam', pp. 35-42, Leipzig 1927.
INTRODUCTION
li
and all the rest of his adventures, since he left this kingdom until
then, and also about the death of the ambassador Tome Pires
and of the others whom Fernao Peres de Andrade left with him in
Canton to go to the King of China, which, according to what he
told me, does not very well agree with what our chroniclers write’ ^ .
Faria e Sousa was the first chronicler to use Pinto’s informa-
tion in a full chapter rectifying what he, following Barros, had
written before about the supposed death of Pires in Canton^.
Then Abel-Remusat^, in 1829, gives an account of Pires’ adven-
tures in China in part based also on Pinto’s information. R. H.
Major, in his excellent Introduction (p. xxxvii) to Mendoza’s
History of China, quotes Remusat’s account in order to com-
plete Mendoza’s description of Pires’ embassy, which is more or
less based on Barros, and defends Pinto against William Con-
greve’s lines in his Love for Love (1695) ‘Ferdinand Mendes
Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude’^.
Commenting on Major’s defence of Pinto, Ferguson writes; ‘I
am astonished that such an able scholar as Mr. Major, in his
Introduction to the Hakluyt Society’s edition of Mendoza,
should, after referring to Mendez Pinto’s alleged adventures in
China, conclude: “Upon the whole, his remarks leave no doubt,
we think, of the truth of his having been an eye-witness of what
he records” ’ (p. 36n). For Ferguson all that Pinto says about
Pires is ‘fabrication’, ‘unblushing falsehood’, ‘mendacity’. No
less surprising is a similar attitude assumed by another out-
standing scholar, Henri Cordier. After transcribing part of
Remusat’s account of the encounters of Pinto with Ines de
Leiria and Vasco Calvo, Cordier, without giving any reason
' Peregrina(ao, cxvi.
^ When, at the end of the preliminaries to his Asia Portuguesa, vol. i, Sousa
mentions the books he utilized, he says: ‘Many doubt the veracity of Fernao
Mendes Pinto’s Historia Indica; but as many, who travelled through those
parts, say that he could have told things still more difficult to believe. I hold
him to be very truthful, for many compelling reasons; but if he is not, it is in
things which are outside my province.’
3 Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques, ii, 203-6.
It must be said that Congreve puts the taunt at Pinto in the mouth of
Foresight, the fool in the play, ‘an illiterate old fellow, peevish and positive,
superstitious, and pretending to understand Astrology, Palmistry, Physi-
ognomy, Omens, Dreams, etc.’
lii INTRODUCTION
whatever, dismisses the whole question in six words: ‘Pinto
mentait et Remusat se trompait^’
Can this matter be dismissed so summarily? As pointed out
above, Barros does not mention any special date for Pires’ death,
though he was following Vieira’s letter which states that Pires
died in May 1524; and the copy of Vieira’s letter, published by
Ferguson, is full of mistakes of every kind. Castanheda, who in
1528 went to India where he lived for about ten years, shows
that he does not know anything positive about Pires’ death and
still less its date; but he asserts that the order for the arrest of
Pires and his companions determined that ‘they should be kept
separated from one another’. Correia, who in 1512 went to India
and lived there for many years (in India, where he died, he wrote
the Lendas), occupying such posts as that of Afonso de Albu-
querque’s secretary, says, quite positively, that after Pires’ arrest
in Canton he was taken to another town where he lived for a
long time. Furthermore, Ferguson himself quotes the contem-
porary Chinese source, mentioned by Mayers in Notes and
Queries, in which it is stated that ‘the interpreter was subjected
to capital punishment and his men were sent back in custody to
Canton, and expelled beyond the frontiers of the province’.
Mayers says in a footnote that by the interpreter in question
Tome Pires himself was meant. Ferguson, basing his statement
on Vieira’s letter, declares that this is an error: ‘it was the native
interpreters who were beheaded.’ Cordier (p. 521), however,
agrees with Mayers’ interpretation. What seems more probable
is that the confusing reference means that the interpreters were
beheaded, and the Portuguese who escaped death were expelled
from Canton province. As has already been shown, it seems
from what Vieira says that Pires was in another prison, and it
is not clear that he meant that the ambassador had died also.
Besides, it is rather strange that Vieira should give so much
detailed information about the death of his other companions and
be so brief about the death of the most important of the Portu-
guese in Canton — the ambassador himself. He does not even say
the day on which the death occurred, or what happened to the
body. Pires was in another prison, and obviously Vieira obtained
‘ UArrivee des Portugais en Chine, p. 520.
INTRODUCTION
liii
his information second-hand. That Vieira and Calvo were not
very well informed is shown, among other things, by their
ignorance of the death of Jorge Alvares in 1521 in Tamao. It is
quite possible that the Chinese purposely deceived Vieira, tell-
ing him that Pires had died, when in fact he was sent out of
Canton according to the instructions from Peking. Against
Vieira’s doubtful statement there is some fairly positive evidence
to show that it is unjustifiable to label Pinto’s information as
‘unblushing falsehood’.
An important point overlooked by Ferguson in Vieira’s letter
was this — ‘The women of the interpreters as also those of Tome
Pires that were left in this city in the present year were sold as
the property of traitors’ (fol. 112). If Pires had ‘women’ before
1524, and was about fifty when he arrived at Canton in 1517,
there is nothing so extraordinary in the fact of Pinto meeting in
1543 a woman who told him she was a daughter of the unfor-
tunate Portuguese ambassador and a Chinese woman. As regards
Pinto’s meeting with Calvo, Ferguson based his assertion of
‘mendacity’ mainly on the supposition of Calvo’s letter having
been written in 1536. After what has been said above it is more
reasonable to assume that Pinto was truthful than to say, as
Ferguson did — ‘We may take it as absolutely certain that Vasco
Calvo died in prison in Canton within a year or two of writing
the letter of 1536’.* There is, however, an obvious incongruity
in Pinto’s statement that Ines de Leiria told him that Pires had
been married to her mother for twenty-seven years, which is
repeated when he reports that Calvo told him that twenty-seven
years had elapsed since he and Pires were made captives; as
* Op. cit., p. 38. Ferguson does not give the reason for his ‘absolute
certainty’. In the introduction to his edition of the Peregrinagao (Lisboa 1908)
J. I. de Brito Rebelo had already remarked (p. xxiv) that Ferguson had over-
looked the reference in Vieira’s letter to ‘the women of the interpreters and
also those of Tom^ Pires’ and the groundless though peremptory assertion
about Vasco Calvo. Ferguson’s bias against Pinto is only too evident. On
Pinto’s references to the terrible massacre of the Portuguese by the Chinese
in Liampo and Chang-chou (CMncheo) in 1545 and 1549, Ferguson com-
ments; ‘I consider both these stories to be pure fiction, without any basis in
fact ; and I even feel very doubtful whether such an island as “ Lampacau ’ ’ ever
existed except in the brain of the writer’ (p. 39). Pires was right, however, as
has been recognized by Cordier himself (op. cit., p. 523) among others.
liv INTRODUCTION
their arrest happened in 1522, only twenty-two years had
elapsed, not twenty-seven. This inaccuracy seems more strange
because Pinto shows that he read what the chroniclers had
written on the matter, and he could easily have checked his
reckoning'. On the other hand, if Pinto really wanted to invent
a whole story about Pires, for the purpose of deceiving his
readers, he could easily have made it more true to life by adjust-
ing his description to the Chroniclers’ accounts and mentioning
Vieira, about whom he says nothing. That he did not do so is
one more proof of Pinto’s good faith. Pinto returned from the
East to Portugal in 1558, and only began writing the Pere-
grinagao eleven or so years later; after so many adventures it is
not likely that he had been able to keep a book of notes, at least
of that early period^. He was writing from memory — and a
wonderful memory it was. It is not surprising that due to a
lapsus memoriae or even a simple lapsus calami he wrote twenty-
seven instead of twenty-two years.
Ines de Leiria’s account, as Pinto has transmitted it to us,
needs also some sort of adjustment in one or two minor points.
As regards the inaccuracies it must be borne in mind that she
spoke to Pinto in Chinese, because she knew only a few words of
Portuguese, and after more than twenty-six years Pinto can be
excused for committing a few not very serious mistakes when
writing from memory. He could not even remember the year of
Pires’ death, which Ines de Leiria and Calvo must have told
him; if he really wanted to deceive he could invent one date
more. Ines’ mother may have been one of the women of Tome
Pires, referred to by Vieira as having been ‘sold as the property
of traitors’ in 1524. When in 1520 Pires went from Nanking to
Peking by the Grand Canal, and also on his return some months
later, he passed by the city of Sampitay, as Pinto did twenty-
' Pinto did not begin to write the Peregrinagao before 1569; both Livro v
of Castanheda’s Historia and Barros’ Decada in were published for the first
time in 1554 and 1563 respectively. Brito Rebelo, still convinced that Pires
really died in Canton in 1524, thinks that when the MS of the Peregrinagao
‘ corrected’, before its publication, ‘the correctors transferred to the father
the period of time which really referred to the daughter.’ Loc. cit.
^ Pinto however refers in chapters cv, cvi and cvii to ‘a small book called
Aquesedo dealing with the greatness of Peking, which I brought to this
kingdom’.
INTRODUCTION
Iv
three years later. It is likely that on one of those occasions
Pires met the mother of the future Ines. We do not know where
he went when banished from Canton in 1524, but it would not
be difficult for him to find his way to Sampitay, where Ines’
mother ‘had some property of her own’. Though Pinto does not
tell us the year of Pires’ death, it seems from his account that
Pires had died a few years before Pinto met Ines de Leiria, per-
haps not long before 1540. Pires certainly tried to communicate
with Malacca but, it seems, unsuccessfully, for during twenty
years or so after 1524 the Portuguese unfortunately were not
allowed into China, and communications with the outside world
became much more difficult; though it may not have been
impossible for Pires to send some letter or other message out of
China, it was by no means an easy thing.
Sampitay. As regards Sampitay it is possible to deduce from
Pinto’s account that it corresponds to the present town of P’ei
chou or Hsin-p’ei-chou, a place near the northern limit of
Kiangsu province. The frequency with which Chinese place-
names change through the centuries, makes the identification of
those mentioned in early accounts sometimes extremely difficult.
Perplexities such as we find in Pinto’s account of his journey
from Nanking to Peking occur in more or less every early
account. Pinto’s journey, as described in chaps. Lxxxvii-c of
the PeregrinafaOy can be summarized as follows: With his eight
Portuguese companions and thirty or forty other captives, Pinto
embarked on a lantea (a swift rowing boat) and left Nanking
early one morning. At sunset they moored at the village of Ntn-
hacutem, which was the native place of the guardian or man in
charge of them, the Chifu, as he was called, where they remained
for three days. He refers to the ‘impetuous current’ of the river
(Yangtze Kiang)the name of which was meaning ‘fish
flower’, perhaps on account of the ‘infinite quantity’ of fish there
is in it. On the fourth day of their journey they reached Pocasser,
a good town twice as large as Canton, where there was a great
pagoda. They left the next day and arrived at another large town
called Xilingau. Following up the river, next day they saw large
fields with plenty of cattle and other stock, for the space of ten
to twelve leagues, and they reached the small town of Junquileu,
Ivi
INTRODUCTION
Here they found the mausoleum of the ambassador Trannocem
Mudeliar, uncle of the king of Malacca, who had come to China
forty years ago to ask for help against the Portuguese The river
was then narrower than at Nanking. The banks up the river are
full of ‘cities, towns, villages, hamlets, fortresses and castles’.
Eleven days later they reached the town of Sampitay, where they
stayed for five days. After passing many other towns and other
places, and towns entirely formed by boats, they arrived in
Peking on 9 Oct. 1543.
Now let us examine this part of Pinto’s itinerary. He says that
on the fourth day of his journey, and after stopping three days at
Ninhacutem, he reached Pocasser, which seems to correspond to
Chinkiang^. Ninhacutem must have lain not far from Chinkiang,
for only one day was actually spent on the voyage from Nanking,
which, thanks to the ‘impetuous current’, was long enough to
cover the 43 miles of river separating the two cities. From there
' This town is referred to in Comentdrios (iii, xxx) as jfanquileu, and the
Malay ambassador is called Tuao Nacem Mudaliar. The mausoleum had an
inscription which the Comentdrios and Pinto give practically in the same
words; but they give quite different descriptions of the monument itself, so
that Pinto could hardly have taken the story from the Comentdrios (the first
edition of which dates from 1557, while the Peregrinafao was begun some
twelve years later). It seems to me more likely that some of Pinto’s com-
panions, or even Pinto indirectly, had supplied the information used by the
author of the Comentdrios. It is obvious that Pinto wrote something like Tuan
nacem, which the editor of the Peregrinafao misread as Trannocem, as he
certainly did with many other exotic names. It is not easy to make this name
— Tuam Nacem Mudeliar, or Tuan Hasan Mudeliar — fit into that com-
plicated period of confused early Malayan history. Pires refers to a Tuam
Afem or Tuan Hasan; but it seems that he was a first cousin, not an uncle, of
king Mahmud of Malacca, who ordered him to be killed with others of his
family in 1510. See pp. 252-4. Malacca was taken by the Portuguese in 1511,
so the voyage of the ambassador to China had been made about thirty, not
forty, years before.
* In chap. Ixxii Pinto refers to the ‘custom house of Pocasser’, and in
chap, ccxxii he mentions the liberation of ‘five Portuguese who had been
prisoners in the city of Pocasser for more than twenty years’. In both cases
Pocasser may correspond to Chinkiang. It could hardly be a misprint. How-
ever, I cannot find any explanation for the name. Prof. Moule tells me: ‘In
the sixteenth century Chinkiang was not called anything like Pocasser. The
only loop-hole is that some towns occasionally had popular names which
have not been recorded in the official histories.’ This may be the case here.
As, according to what Pinto says, the Chifu was a native of Ninhacutem, a
village near Pocasser, it is only natural that he may have learned that name,
like other names along his course, from his native guardian.
INTRODUCTION
Ivii
he went to Xilingau, which may correspond to Yangchow', the
most important town at the beginning of the Grand Canal north
of the Yangtze, 45 li (15 miles) from Chinkiang. Pinto says that
one day after passing another place 5 leagues beyond Xilingau
he saw large fields for the space of 10 to 12 leagues (32 to 38
miles) before Junquileu. The place 5 leagues beyond Xilingau
must be Shaopo, the next important town, which lies 50 li, 16
miles or 5*6 leagues, from Yangchow; Junquileu may correspond
to a small town, which Gandar calls Wei-kiue-leou — Wei-ch’iieh-
lou in English — between Fanshui and Paoying, about 160 li,
56 miles or 17-5 leagues, from Shaopo todays. Eleven days after
Junquileu Pinto reached Sampitay, the town where Pires had
probably died a few years before. This town must be Hsin P’ei
chou, P’i chou or P’ei chou (lat. 34° 25', long. 118° 6'), which
today lies six miles north-east of the nearest point on the Grand
Canal, in the neighbourhood of a small lake or morass, in a
maze of canals. P’ei chou is Marco Polo’s Pingiu or Piju, which
he calls ‘a great, rich, and noble city, with large trade and
manufactures, and a great production of silk. This city stands at
the entrance of the great province of Manzi, and there reside at
it a great number of merchants who despatch carts from this
place loaded with great quantities of goods to the different
towns of Manzi’ 3 . It is also mentioned in an Itinerary of 1276,
translated and edited by A. C. Moule. Yen Kuang-ta, the author
of the Itinerary, says that, travelling by boat, he ‘stopped for the
night outside the walls of P’i chou . . . All the officials went
into the city of P’i to see the sights. The city wall and the walls
of the houses were broken down, and the people were living in
* J. B. du Halde, in his description of the Grand Canal, going from north
to south, says: ‘ ... la ville de Yang tcheou, I’un des plus celebres ports de
I’Empire. Peu apres il (the Canal) entre dans le grand fleuve Yang tse Kiang,
a une journee de Nanking.’ Description de VEmpire de Chine, iii, 156.
^ For these distances I follow Gandar’s important work Le Grand Canal,
pp. 66-75, which gives the complete itinerary of the Canal from Hangtcheou
(Hangchow) to Peking. F. J. Mayers, however, gives an itinerary or table of
distances for this part of the Canal, between Chinkiang and Chungking, the
total of which amounts to 511 li. Record of a Trip in North-East Kiangsu,
October 1920, p. 29, Shanghai 1921. Gandar’s distances for the same amount
to 485 li, with individual differences as large as 20 li (7 miles). One li is equal
to 576 metres; one mile is equal to 2-8 li.
3 II, bciii. Yule, Marco Polo, ii, 141. See A. C. Moule, Hangchou to Shang-tu.
Iviii
INTRODUCTION
the ruins. From this point all the towns we passed were in this
condition. We spent the night on the open bank’^ It seems that
either this happened after Polo’s description or, more probably,
that the city had recovered before he left China in 1292.
P’i chou, P’ei chou or Peichow are the names usually found in
modern books and maps. But, for instance, on a 1928 map
‘Compiled by Messrs. The Asiatic Petroleum Co. (N.C.), Ltd.,
Shanghai’ it appears as Sinpichow, and in the China Pdstal Atlas
published in 1919 at Peking, the Chinese characters indicating
this town mean the same. In this edition of the Postal Atlas
the correct reading of the three characters is Hsin P’ei chou;
beside these there are two other characters in brackets which
read P’ei hsien. Hsien means district. In a more recent edition
of the Postal Atlas (Nanking 1933) the place, besides the two
Chinese characters, has only the corresponding word Pihsien, in
accord with the modern official Chinese nomenclature, chou
having been changed to hsien by the Republic. Hsin, which
means ‘new’, is often spelt sin, or in the case of places in the
south sun. For example, a Cantonese would read as sun the same
character that in the north is read as hsin or sin. Under the
heading Hsia P’ei, i.e.. Lower P’ei, a modern Chinese Geo-
graphical Dictionary^ says that the old wall of Hsia P’ei (or old
P’ei chou) still exists east of the present P’ei — three li east of
P’ei chou, according to Playfair^. From the above-mentioned
Itinerary of 1276 we see that the city of P’ei was then in ruins,
perhaps as a consequence of the Mongol conquest or of the
terrible floods that in the thirteenth century forced the Yellow
* Loc. cit., p. 397.
^ Chung kuo ku chin ti ming ta tz'u tien [General Dictionary of the ancient
and modern Place-names of China], Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1931.
According to this Dictionary, in the Later Han (a.d. 25-220) the Seat of the
Government of the Hsia P’ei Kingdom was at the ‘Old Wall of Hsia P’ei’.
‘The Old Wall is east of P’ei Hsien in the modern Chiang-su’ (Kiangsu).
Though the chronology in such cases is not always very clear and sometimes
even contradictory, we gather from the four articles referring to P’ei in the
Dictionary (pp. 48 and 537) that the name and status of the city changed
several times through the centuries; it seems also that it changed place more
than once. None of the four articles refers to either the ‘old’ or the ‘present’
cities as Hsin, ‘New’, but at least the two modern maps mentioned above are
quite explicit.
3 The Cities and Towns of China, 2549.
INTRODUCTION
lix
River to change its course and thus flow through the region where
P’ei was situated, or as a consequence of both. It is evident that
in Fires’ and Pinto’s time a new town had long been built on the
bank of the Canal, westward of the ruined one, and perhaps it
was called Hsin (or Sun) P’ei, i.e.. New P’ei. T'ai means
‘terrace’ and fi (or Vai in Cantonese) means ‘embankment’ or
‘a dyke’, ‘a bank’'. I venture to suggest that in Pinto’s time the
place was called Hsin (or Sun) P’ei t’ai, i.e., Sampitay^ or that at
least that was the usual name among the boatmen and therefore
that was what they called it in speaking to Pinto. This part of
Kiangsu province, crossed by the old course of the Yellow River,
has been through the centuries the scene of such terrible floods,
with consequent changes in the hydrography of the region and
probably in the course of the CanaR, that it is quite possible that
after Pinto’s time the Canal moved westward. This point of the
Canal is 480 li, or 170 miles, from Wei-ch’iieh-lou or Junquileu,
which means an average of 15-5 miles a day for the eleven days
Pinto took to cover the distance, with several locks or sluices to
pass through 3 and the water running strongly north-south.
It is not surprising that Pinto in writing Sampitay gives a
better version of this place-name than in many other cases. Not
only did he stay there longer than in any other place during his
journey, but the meeting with Ines de Leiria and the story she
told about Tome Pires must have impressed him more than any-
thing else and so was firmly fixed in his memory. It is easy to
find many inaccuracies in Pinto’s account, but in several points
his good faith cannot be doubted. We must, however, allow for
some inexactitudes, owing to the fact that he was writing from
memory many years later, which made him mix up many of the
very exotic oriental names, to the fact that we do not possess
the MS of his book and that, no doubt, the editor of the Fere-
grinafdo (first published thirty-one years after Pinto’s death)
could not understand most of the names of places and persons
' H. A. Giles, A Chinese-English Dictionary, 10,577, 10,914, 10,917.
* See Gandar, op. cit., pp. 29 seqq. On a map published in Yule’s Marco
Polo (ii, 144) Peichau is placed on the east bank of the Canal and only a few
miles north of the old course of the Yellow River ‘from circa a.d. 1200 to 1853’.
* Gandar, op. cit., p. 26. W. J. Garnett, Report of a Journey through the
Provinces of Shantung and Kiangsu, p. 19, London 1907.
lx INTRODUCTION
written by Pinto and probably corrupted many of them, as in
the case of Tuam Nacem mentioned above. In the case of Tome
Pires, as in many others, the thorough study of the problem has
shown how inconsistent and unfair can be the accusations
showered on Fernao Mendes Pinto by his detractors ^ There are
still many points in the Peregrinagdo waiting to be explained,
perhaps waiting in vain, as has happened in many early accounts.
Even in Marco Polo’s Book^ in spite of the exhaustive studies to
which it has been subjected, there are points that cannot be
understood. In almost every chronicle or early account of travels,
place-names that cannot be identified, erroneous and contra-
dictory statements or dates are found, as can be seen over and
over again in the course of the notes which accompany the
present edition of Pires’ Suma. However, nobody dreams of
saying that Correia, Galvao, Castanheda, Barros, Couto or some
other early writer lied, or wrote unblushing falsehoods or men-
dacities when what they say does not correspond to the proved
and established truth.
Pinto’s adventures and travels undoubtedly form one of the
most wonderful chapters in the history of voyages, and the
beautifully written book which he bequeathed to posterity is
indeed a jewel in this fascinating kind of literature. The great
traveller and writer certainly deserves a fairer treatment, and his
memory ought to be referred to with more respect. It is indeed
time to pay Femao Mendes Pinto the reparation to which he is
entitled^.
* George Phillips writes: ‘I have in my possession a copy of Marsden’s
edition of Marco Polo, owned by Dr. Morrison in 1 826, which offers a curious
illustration of this, for I find at the end of the book written in pencil the
following estimate of the character of the great traveller: “With all deference
to the learned Venetian, I come to the conclusion that he is an arrant liar.” ’
The Seaports of India and Ceylon, p. 215. Fernao Mendes Pinto has yet to find
his Sir Henry Yule.
* One of the many extraordinary adventures of Pinto, during the twenty-
one years he spent in the East, was his entry in 1 554 as a novice in the Society
of Jesus and his abandonment of it in 1556 — a serious and unpardonable
offence, it seems. Cristdvao Aires, one of his biographers, writes: ‘The anim-
adversion of the Jesuits against Pinto, to the point of ordering his name to be
stricken out in all their records, contributed much to the systematic discredit
of the Peregrinafdo.’ Fernao Mendes Pinto e 0 Japao, p. 3. Pinto wrote two
letters to the Society, while in its service, one from Malacca in 1554,
INTRODUCTION
Ixi
Summing Up. Too many queries, alas, are strewn through
this attempt to reconstruct Tome Pires’ life. But, maintaining all
reserves where evidence is merely circumstantial, the biography
of the first European ambassador to China may be sketched as
follows; Tome Pires was born about 1468, perhaps in Lisbon,
another from Macao in 1555; the Jesuits published the first of these letters
but not the second, and later the author’s name was erased or altered in both
of them. See the very interesting and valuable work of Jordao de Freitas,
Fernao Mendes Pinto, pp. 57-60. Several Jesuit historians utilized the manu-
script of the Peregrinafao before its publication; the first of them was G.
Pietro Maffei in his Historia Indica (1589), but the mention of Pinto’s name
was carefully avoided. In his Historia da Igreja no Japdo the Jesuit Joao
Rodrigues, called Tguzzu (1561-1634), refers to Pinto only in order to label
the Peregrinafao as a ‘book of counterfeits’. A. Cortesao, Cartografia, i, 165-6;
A Expansdo Portuguesa atraves do Pactfico, pp. 170-2. The Peregrinafdo was
published for the first time in Lisbon, 1614, after being corrected by the
chronicler Francisco de Andrada. Francisco de Herrera Maldonado, whose
translation of the Peregrinafdo into Spanish was published in Madrid, 1627,
says in his introduction: ‘Francisco de Andrada, Chief Chronicler of that
Kingdom of Portugal, received this original script of Fernao Mendes Pinto,
that he might order, correct and arrange it before being printed . . . but he
left this book so imperfect that instead of correcting he damaged it further, so
that the wrong arrangement he gave it was the reason for its truth breeding
doubts and opinions among narrowminded men . . .’ fol. Iv. This may explain
why the Peregrinafdo, after being corrected, does not make the slightest refer-
ence to such an important event in Pinto’s life as the three years he passed
in the Society of Jesus, a period during which the Governor-General of India
sent him as official ambassador to Japan (1554-6). It has been said that Pinto
was expelled from the Society of Jesus ‘because he was a marrano, i.e., of
Jewish blood’, and this quite groundless stretch of the imagination has even
found its way into the Encyclopaedia Britannica (s.v. Pinto, Fernao Mendes).
Elsewhere I have already shown that Pinto was not expelled, and proved
that he was not of Jewish extraction. Ferndo Mendes Pinto ndo era de origem
judaica, in Seara Nova, No. 842, 2 Oct. 1943, Lisbon. If many Jesuits in the
past, and some in the present, have attacked Pinto, exceptions can be
mentioned. In 1710 Padre Francisco de Sousa, S.J., wrote in his Oriente
Conquistado: ‘. . . Pinto well known for the book of his peregrinations, as true
in the judgement of the learned as doubtful in the opinion of the vulgar’
(p. 106); in 1925 the Rev. L. Besse, S.J., and the Rev. H. Hosten, S.J., wrote:
‘The chief witness is Fernao Mendes Pinto, whose veracity on the events of
Burma between 1545 and 1552 can hardly be doubted.’ Father Manoel da
Fonseca, S.jf., in Ava {Burma) {1613-1652), p. 45. In Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, vol. xxi, 1925. Though many early as well as modern
authors have verified and proclaimed the honesty of the author of the Pere-
grinafdo, the anathema has been pronounced, and the slander has never dis-
appeared. In the last edition of Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and
Phrases, ‘Fernao Mendes Pinto’ is still given as synonymous of ‘deceiver, liar,
story-teller, ass in lion’s skin', etc.
Ixii
INTRODUCTION
where he may have lived in the Porta da Madalena, near the
north-east corner of the present Pra9a do Comercio. His father
was the apothecary of King John II, and Tome Pires himself
was the apothecary of Prince Afonso. On 20 Apr. 15 ii, perhaps
then a widower, Pires embarked in Lisbon for India, where he
arrived on 7 Sept, or a few days later. In Lisbon he had been
appointed ‘factor of the drugs’ in India, but after eight or nine
months in Cannanore and Cochin, Afonso de Albuquerque
despatched him to Malacca to make an inquiry about some
irregularities, and also as controller of the drugs, scrivener, and
accountant of the factory. Pires sailed from Cochin in April or
May and arrived in Malacca in June or July 1512. From March
to July 1513 he went to Java as factor of a fleet. He left Malacca
about the end of January 1515 and arrived in Cochin at the end
of February. The greatest part of the Suma Oriental was
written in Malacca but finished in India. Pires intended to
return to Portugal, but the new Governor- General, Lopo Soares
de Albergaria, his old personal friend, chose him, on the advice
of other Portuguese captains and noblemen in India, to go as
ambassador to China. He sailed from Cochin about the end of
February 1516, called at Pase and went to Malacca whence he
sailed to China on 12 August. Adverse weather caused the fleet
which accompanied Pires to return to Malacca; he sailed again
from Malacca in June 1517 and arrived at Tamao on 15 August,
and at Canton near the end of September, disembarking about a
month later. After more exasperating delays Pires and his suite
left Canton on 23 Jan. 1520, arrived at Nanking in May, and
before February 1521 he was in Peking, having travelled by the
Grand Canal. After a very bad reception by the court officials he
left Peking on 22 May, without seeing the Emperor, and arrived
back in Canton on 22 Sept. 1521. Pires and his companions were
immediately imprisoned, and on 14 Aug. 1522 he was put in
fetters. By the end of 1523 or beginning of 1524 he was banished
from Canton and went to Sampitay, a town on the banks of the
Grand Canal, where two years before, when travelling between
Nanking and Peking, he had met a Chinese woman of some
wealth by whom he had a daughter called Ines de Leiria. Pires
must have died in Sampitay not very long before 1540, when he
INTRODUCTION
Ixiii
was about seventy years old. corresponds to the present
small town of Hsin-P’ei-chou, Sinpichou or Pihsien, near the
northern limit of Kiangsu province.
Tome Pires can hardly have imagined what the future had in
store for him when he agreed to lead the ill-fated embassy to
China. When he was on the point of returning to Portugal,
happy and rich, what seemed to be a golden opportunity came to
him of rising in social status and enormously increasing his
wealth in knowledge and money. But he lost all he had, and
after terrible sufferings, anxieties, humiliations and miseries, he
died unknown, forgotten and hopeless in some town of far-
distant China. After reading the Suma Oriental and knowing
how it was written, in the spare time of a very busy life, we can
be sure that, from the time he left Cochin in 1516 until his
death some twenty odd years later in China, Pires continued to
write. We know, through Correia, as mentioned above, that
before 1524 Pires sent the Governor of India ‘a book in which he
gave an account of the riches and greatness of China’. But no
trace of this precious book exists today, no more than of the
book dealing with ‘weights and measures in all the different
places’ of the East which Pires himself announces in the Suma.
The Suma Oriental and the letter of 27 Jan. 1516 ‘about the
drugs and where they grow’ may give us some sort of idea of
what Pires must have written about that China which he knew
so thoroughly and intimately. A small reference in Cristovao
Vieira’s letter gives some idea of the pains taken by Pires in his
study of China — ‘Tome Pires said that Nanking lies in 28 or 29
degrees, Peking in 38 or 39 degrees^’ The correct latitude of
Peking is 39° 54' and the latitude of Nanking is 32° 5'. Nanking
is obviously Vieira’s mistake; perhaps he meant Nan-chang
(lat. 28° 30' N), through which Pires probably passed on his
journey between Canton and Nanking.
It was a great loss to the history of science and of geography
that Pires’ writings on China disappeared, both those which he
sent before 1524 as well as those he never managed to smuggle
out of China.
* Voretzsch, op. cit., p. 62. Pires’ name, which appears in the Lisbon frag-
ments of Vieira’s original letter, has been omitted in the Paris copy (fol. i i2v.)
Ixiv
INTRODUCTION
THE ‘SUMA oriental’ OF TOM^ FIRES
The Lisbon Manuscript. Besides the Paris MS there is an-
other in the Biblioteca Nacional of Lisbon, without name of
author and containing a portion only of the Suma Oriental. This
forms part of a codex, MS 299, which begins with a Chronica
geral dos reinos de Guzerate, fols. 1-41V., and is completed with
the Soma horientall que trata do mar Roxo ate os chims, fols.
41V.-98V. Fols. 42-47 are missing. According to the index in the
codex, it formerly contained also a Chronica troiana^ which is
now in MS 298.
The whole codex is in the same clear hand of about the
middle of the first half of the sixteenth century. The beginning is
identical with fol. ii 8 v. of the Paris MS, but the text from
‘nacimento do njllo’ until about the third quarter of fol. 121 r.
is lacking, as it occurred on the six missing folios; then follows
the description of Arabia, Ormuz, Persia, Noutaques, Risbutos^
Cambay, Kanara, Narsinga, Malabar, Bengal, Arakan, Pegu,
Siam, Cambodia, Champa, Cochin-China, and China^ All the
rest — Ceylon, Choromandel, Indian Archipelago, Lequios,
Japan and the history of Malacca are not dealt with at all. Not
only the headings and order of the chapters or items are different
in the two MSS, but also the text differs in many points and is
much more reduced in the Lisbon MS, mainly in the descrip-
tions of Siam and China. A few variations between the two texts
have been pointed out in the notes to the English version, when
necessary, but many more exist.
The Lisbon MS must be a copy of some now lost original,
which was not that from which the Paris MS was copied.
Though the reductions in the text as far as Bengal might be
explained as a mere desire to simplify on the part of the copyist
or whoever ordered the copy to be made, the same simple ex-
planation could not be applied to the very reduced text after the
description of Bengal. On the other hand, the Lisbon MS, at
* The folios in the Lisbon and Paris MSS correspond as follows: 41V. =
ii8v; 48r. to 59v. = i2ir. to I2sr.; 59V. to 63v. = i3or. to 131V.; 64 = i3or.;
6sr. to 7or. =i32r. to i34r.; 7or. to 84V. =I25V. to 129V.; 84V. to 98r. =i34r.
to 1 39V.; 98r. to 98V. =i6ir. to 162V.
PLATE IV
The first lines referring to China in Tome Pires’ Suma Oriental. Above — Lisbon MS;
below — Paris MS (pp. Ixiv-lxx)
INTRODUCTION
Ixv
least in the passage referring to Malik ’Aiyaz, adds some
information to that given in the Paris MS^; the date 1522 shows
that it was added much after the actual writing of the original
and not by Pires himself. Not only are there words and passages
which are wrong in the Paris MS and correct in the Lisbon MS,
but vice versa, words like agenh and gamarcante in the former
appear wrongly written in the latter. It is possible that the
Lisbon MS is the copy of some preliminary report sent by Pires
not long after his arrival in Malacca. He must have received
instructions, before he left Lisbon, to send reports similar to the
Suma Oriental, mainly of an economic character though with a
historic background. Pires may be referring to this preliminary
report, or some other written shortly after it, when in the letter
from Malacca 7 Nov. 1512 he says to his brother: ‘To the King
our Lord I write extensively about the things of Malacca’, and
then adds that this is sent together with other letters to ‘Senhor
Jorge de Vasconcelos’, the director of the Casa da Mina e India,
an early Ministry for the Colonies. Through his stay in Malacca
Pires was able to gather much more information about the Far
East, the Indian Archipelago, and Malacca itself with the
neighbouring countries, which he may later on have included in
the Suma Oriental. On the other hand there is no doubt that the
Suma Oriental was officially kept secret, and it is quite possible
that only the part of it referring to matters already in the public
domain was allowed by the Portuguese authorities to be tran-
scribed and to leave the carefully closed State Archives; the
Lisbon MS may be a copy of that transcription.
Ramusio’s Translation. In his Primo Volume delle Naviga-
tioni et Viaggi, printed in Venice 1550 for the first time, Ramusio
publishes, after the Libro di Odoardo Barbosa, the Sommario di
tutti li regni, citta, & populi orientali, con li traffichi & mercantie,
che iui si trovano, cominciando dal mar Rosso jino alii populi della
China. Tradotto dalla lingua Portoghese nella Italiana. The trans-
lation was made from an original similar to the Lisbon MS^, and
* See note p. 35.
* As the Encyclopaedia Britannica says, the original of this Summary of all
the Kingdoms, Cities, and Nations from the Red Sea to China has never been
printed or noted elsewhere. Article: Ramusio, Gian Battista.
H.C.S. I.
Ixvi INTRODUCTION
it has the part corresponding to the six folios missing in the
latter. The translation of this part shows many differences from
the Paris MS; for instance the whole section from the reference
to the lack of rain in Egypt to the description of Mecca, in
fol. 119V. of the Paris MS, is missing in Ramusio. But there are
also differences between the Lisbon MS and Ramusio’s trans-
lation; besides many minor ones, there is a large omission in the
description of the Persian Gulf. After five lines under the head-
ing Del golfo Persico, Ramusio follows with the Nodhakis
(Naitaques), whom he calls Motages, leaving out all that is con-
tained in fols. 54r.-57r. of the Lisbon MS about the rivers
Euphrates and Tigris, and about the Sophy. When referring to
Malik ’Aiyaz, Ramusio’s translation has the same reference to
the year 1522 as in the Lisbon MS. This shows that the copy he
used was not made from Pires’ original but from a copy similar
to the Lisbon MS.
Ramusio did not know who was the author of the account he
translated. In the ‘Discorso di M. Gio. Battista Ramusio sopra
il Libro di Odoardo Barbosa, & sopra il Sommario delle Indie
Orientale’ which precedes the translation of both, he says: ‘In the
same way the summary, according to what I have been able to
gather, that too was composed by a Portuguese gentleman, who
sailed over all the East, and having read Barbosa’s Book,
wished to describe almost the same things in his own way
and according to the information which he had received, and
specially about that part where are the Moluccas, which have
to the north a long coast of mainland, which some Portuguese
pilots think, from information received about it in Malacca,
runs towards the east; and according to what I have been told,
he tried to describe it more in detail than was possible for him,
that being one of the most singular and notable parts which is
described on the globe, and completely inhabited and full of
cities and white people, endowed with good intellect and
courteous, and there being there, besides that one, many islands
well populated and abounding in all things necessary for human
sustenance. Nevertheless when he returned home, if he wanted
his book to be seen, he was forced to take away all that part
which towards the end deals with the Moluccas and the spices.
INTRODUCTION
Ixvii
And I at that time having ordered with great trouble and diffi-
culty the book to be transcribed in Lisbon itself, I was only able
to get one copy, and that imperfect; and I did the same for
Barbosa’s Book in Seville. So much can the interests of the
Prince effect. I could well have wished that as I did not fail to
take every care to obtain these books, a happier fortune would
have brought them into my hands more complete and more
correct, and I would much more gladly and quickly have printed
and published them; not for any other end or purpose than to
please students who take pleasure in such reading. . . .’^
Though he wrongly assumed that the author of the Sommario
had read Barbosa’s Book, which actually was written a couple of
years later, Ramusio’s report is very interesting. We see that he
had got information about the Suma Oriental, complete as we
know it through the Paris MS, but he was unable to obtain a full
copy in spite of all his strenuous efforts. Whoever supplied him
with his incomplete copy had to tell him that the author had
been forced to leave out all the matter concerning the Moluccas
and the spices — a specious story to cover his inability to do
better. What was most important and interesting for Ramusio
had been left out, i.e., just the information about the precious
spices, the Moluccas and the other islands of the Indian Archi-
pelago, of which nothing more was known than vague references
in early writers, the fanciful description of Varthema, who never
went beyond India, the very incomplete and second-hand
account of Barbosa, and the exciting but brief description of
Pigafetta, dealing almost entirely with the relatively small part
he saw. It is easy to understand Ramusio’s obvious disappoint-
ment. In accordance with the policy of secrecy in the matter of
discoveries, followed by the Portuguese Crown since the first
half of the fifteenth century, the important information about
the Spice Islands and the East Indies could not be given forth.
Though Spain had officially desisted from her pretensions to the
Moluccas by the Treaty of Saragossa (22 April 1529), the
* This translation follows the 1613 edition (i, 287V.). The words ‘almost’
(quasi) and ‘and the spices’ (& delle spetierie), and the sentence ‘So much can
the interests of the Prince effect’ (Tanto possono gVinteressi del principe), are
not in the 1550 edition (l, 31OV.).
Ixviii
INTRODUCTION
Spaniards never gave up, and their spies never ceased trying to
obtain all the information they could until 1580, when that
unfortunate period of Portuguese history began, during which
Portugal was under Spanish domination for sixty years^ Thus
the part of Pires’ Sutna that was allowed to leak out, or that some
foreign agent was able to obtain — that in the Lisbon MS and in
Ramusio’s translation — contained nothing more than unimpor-
tant open secrets. The Sommario which reached Ramusio had
been shorn of everything that might be deemed State secrets.
‘Tanto possono gl’interessi del principe’, as the famous Venetian
sadly says.
The Paris Manuscript. We have seen already that the sixty-
two folios containing the Suma Oriental form the second part of
the codex in which the Book of Francisco Rodrigues occupies
the first part. The handwriting is so similar to that of Pires’
letters, extant in Lisbon, that one is led at first to believe that
the present copy of the Suma is in the author’s own hand^. How-
ever, a careful examination shows definitely that it is not in
Pires’ hand. Apart from paleographic reasons, there are many
indications in the manuscript indicating that it is a mere copy,
and that it could not have been written by Pires himself. In the
description of Persia the transcriber of the Paris MS (fol. I22v.)
wrote Ydamca instead of India, which appears correctly in the
Lisbon MS, and consequently in Ramusio’s translation (see
note p. 21). When referring to the merchants of Persia the Paris
MS (fol. I24r.) has cauo for Cairo, which is correct in the Lisbon
MS and in Ramusio (note p. 29). At the beginning of the
description of the ‘Kingdom of Cambay’ there is a word missing
in the Paris MS (fol. I25r.), but in the Lisbon MS and in
Ramusio the sentence is complete (note p. 33). A little further
^ See my essay O Descobrimento da Australdsia e a ‘Questao das Molucas,'
pp. 148 seqq. I have even reason to believe that the Portuguese had discovered
Australia in 1522, and that the secret was jealously kept, as I have shown in
another essay — A Expansao Portuguesa atraves do Pacifico, pp. 155-9.
^ The late Commander Fontoura da Costa, to whom I had sent photostats
of the Suma Oriental so that he might collate the handwriting with that of
Pires’ letters in the T6rre do Tom bo, wrote me saying that he had consulted
several experts, and the first impression was that the handwriting of the Suma
‘seems really that of T. Pires’. But later investigations have left no doubt in
my mind that it is not from Pires’ hand.
INTRODUCTION
Ixix
on, the Paris MS has, wrongly, Dalmds, which is correctly given
as gemte darmas in the Lisbon MS and so in Ramusio (note
p. 34). In the description of the ‘Kingdom of Narsinga’ the
Paris MS (fol. i26r.) has que, which the Lisbon MS correctly
gives as porque, and so too does Ramusio; the same with arte in
the one, and corte in the others (notes p. 64). When referring to
the ‘Nayars of Malabar’, the Paris MS (fol. layv.) wrongly has
pequeno Douro, while the Lisbon MS has correctly pedafo douro
(note p. 71). When describing the ‘Kingdom of Kranganur’ the
copyist of the Paris MS (fol. laSv.) left out the words cd a vimda
dos portugueses he, which are in the Lisbon MS (note p. 79). At
the beginning of the ‘Kingdom of Comorin’ the Paris MS (fol.
lapr.) left out the words O Reino de Comorim cojina, which are
in the Lisbon MS and likewise in Ramusio; under the same
heading it seems that the copyist of the Paris MS missed a whole
line — assy como nos chamamos a duques marquezes comdes &
outros (notes p. 82). In the description of the ‘Kingdom of
Cochin-China’ the Paris MS (fol. 138V.) has qoaf Juncos, which
is a mistake for qoarenf, as it appears in the Lisbon MS and
similarly in Ramusio (note p. 114). These and other divergences
of the same kind, some of them mentioned in the notes, point to
the same conclusion, i.e., that the Paris MS is a copy and could
not possibly come from Pires’ hand.
It is possible that the copy mentioned by Barbosa Machado
was the original. Unfortunately he does not say where it was,
but he might have seen it in the precious royal library of the
Pa?o da Ribeira, or in the still more precious archives of the Casa
da India, which was on the ground floor of the same building,
both destroyed by the fire that broke out when Lisbon was
devastated by the great earthquake of 1755. Barbosa Machado
published vol. ill of his Bibliotheca Lusitana, where he refers to
Pires, in 1752. We do not know where the present copy of the
Suma Oriental was made, or how it came to be bound together
with the Book of Francisco Rodrigues. However, when Ro-
drigues returned from the first voyage to the Moluccas, in 1512,
Pires was already in Malacca. They might have had tastes in
common, and perhaps became friends. They might have met in
India before Pires left for China, and it is quite possible that
Ixx INTRODUCTION
Rodrigues obtained a copy of the Suma Oriental', perhaps he had
a copy especially made for him. But even if they did not meet in
India, they certainly met in Canton. Rodrigues was one of the
captains of the fleet of Simao de Andrade which arrived at
Tamao in August 1519, and Fires did not leave for Peking till
January 1520. It is likely that Fires sent the original of the Suma
Oriental to Lisbon before he left Cochin for China, but he
certainly kept a second copy or the original draft with him.
When the two men met again. Fires probably showed Rodrigues
the Suma Oriental, which he might have seen before in India or
in Malacca, while it was still being written, or Fires may even
have handed it to Rodrigues, in view of the difficulties and un-
certainties he was anticipating. And if Rodrigues had not a
copy already, either one was made while Fires was still in Canton
or not much later. The fact that Rodrigues’ Book is from his own
hand and the present copy of the Suma Oriental is written on
the same kind of paper, strongly suggests that it was made
under Rodrigues’ order and was first in his possession.
Fires introduces confusion into the division of his work. After
saying in the ‘Third Prologue’ that the Suma will be divided up
on the lines of the five principal rivers — Nile, Tigris, Euphrates,
Indus, and Ganges — he goes on to assert that the five books in
which it will be divided will treat: the first from Arabia to
Cambay, the second to Bhatkal, the third to Bengal, the fourth
to China, and the fifth will be all the islands. These two divisions
cannot, of course, be fitted into each other. Then follows, under
the heading ‘Division of the present Suma\ a new division
which does not fit either of the previous ones. It is also in five
books: first — the beginning of Asia, from Africa to the First
India; second — to the end of Middle India; third — High India
till Ayuthia; fourth — China, Liu Kiu, Japan, Borneo, Lufoes, and
Macassars; fifth — all the islands in detail, i.e., the Indian Archi-
pelago. It seems that Fires followed approximately this order,
but the copyist of the Paris MS, after beginning the description
of the ‘Kingdom of Cambay’ (fol. I25r.), follows with ‘Kingdoms
in the land of Kanara’ (fol. 125V.), which belongs to bk. ii and
must come after the ‘Kingdom of Goa’; the rest of the descrip-
tion of Cambay (fols. I30r.-i3iv.) comes after the description of
INTRODUCTION
Ixxi
the Malabar. This maybe the transcriber’s fault, as he wrote at the
head of fol. 125V. — ‘Here you will leave this and look for Cambay
which follows after,’ and also at the head of fol. 13 or. — ‘It is
before the kingdoms in the land of Kanara.’ It seems less pro-
bable that the mistake originated with Pires himself; besides,
in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio’s translation the text follows
in the proper order. Under the heading ‘Pattars of Cambay’
(fol. 13 ir.) we read: ‘You shall find what manner of men they are
back in the description of Malabar.’ But the Lisbon MS (fol.
62r.) says: ‘como adiamte direy no malabar’ (as I will say further
on in the Malabar). This variance in the Paris MS may be due to
the transcriber’s substituting atras (back) for adiamte (further
on) in order to adjust the word to the arrangement of his copy.
The same hand that wrote ‘Osorio’ on fol. 5r., also wrote at the
bottom of fol. 13 IV.: ‘Here ends the first book; and the second,
about the Kanarese and Bhatkal, begins further back.’ To com-
plicate things still further, when the Paris MS was assembled,
fols. i6ir.-i63v. (pp. 89-94 of a previous numeration, perhaps
when the codex was in Osorio’s possession), containing the rest
of bk. IV, which begins on fol. i39r. with the ‘Kingdom of
China’, were placed after the end of bk. v and the ‘Account of
the island of Ceylon’, which ends on fol. i6ov.
It happens also that after he finished bk. v with the ‘Account
of all the islands’, Pires wrote about Ceylon (fol. 160), which he
does not mention in any of the divisions of the Suma. At the
beginning of the ‘Account of Ceylon’ he explains, however: ‘As
I followed the coast of the mainland, I had no mind to deal with
the island of Ceylon, and afterwards I almost forgot about it;
and it did not seem right to fail to speak of it even in a place
inserted out of the proper order; but the scarcity of paper made
me do this, and so as not to put in a leaf and break the original
order.’ This shows that he tried to keep to his original plan,
and thus the confused disposition of the text in the Paris MS
could hardly be his fault. In view of this the ‘Account of Ceylon’
is placed at the end of bk. ii, in the present version, after the
‘Kingdom of Comorin’, the southernmost of Malabar and India.
The last fifteen folios of the Paris MS (i64r.-i78v.) contain the
lengthy historical, geographical and economic description of
Ixxii INTRODUCTION
Malacca, which could hardly be fitted into the scheme drawn up
by Fires, even in bk. ill, though after Pegu and before Siam he
inserted a note, far from clear, which might suggest that
Malacca was dealt with elsewhere. So this is, appropriately
enough, given as bk. vi in the present version. The order of the
whole text has been accordingly adjusted in the English version,
but the Portuguese text is printed exactly in the order of the
Paris MS; as stated above, the numeration of the folios, which
is kept in the original and in the version, will help readers to find
the corresponding portions in the two languages.
Summing up, the present version of the Suma Oriental is
geographically divided, in general lines, as follows:
Preface ;
Bk. I — From Egypt to Cambay, with the Red Sea,
Arabia, Ormuz and Persia;
Bk. II — From Cambay to Ceylon, with the Deccan, Goa,
Kanara, Narsinga and Malabar;
Bk. Ill — From Bengal to Indo-China, with Burma and
Siam;
Bk. IV — China to Borneo, with Liu Kiu, Japan and
Philippines;
Bk. V — Indian Archipelago;
Bk. VI — Malacca.
Where and When the Suma Oriental was Written.
Though the greater part of the Suma Oriental was written in
Malacca, it is probable that it was begun and finished in India.
During the two years and seven months he lived in Malacca,
Pires was extremely busy with his official duties, as he himself
says at the end of the Preface: ‘most of my time was taken up
with my duties in connexion with Your Highness’ revenue, and
the time I devoted to the present work was my leisure.’ It is im-
probable that he was so busy when in India, before embarking
for Malacca, and during the twelve months between his return to
India and departure for China. During the seven months after
his arrival in India he must have collected much information and
begun to write the Suma\ and that he finished it in India is
INTRODUCTION
Ixxiii
clear from the end of the Preface. There are other passages
leading to the same conclusion. In the description of Malacca
Fires refers several times to what will be said in the description
of China, Sumatra, Java, Bengal, etc., which shows that he
wrote it before most of what he says about Malacca; but referring
to the ‘Ports of Siam’ (fol. i37r.) he writes: ‘as we have already
said in the kingdom and district of Malacca.’ Then, when deal-
ing with the weights and measures of Malacca (fol. lybr.), he
says: ‘Now I will tell how it (Malacca) was taken, and what
happened up to the time of my departure for Cochin.’ This
shows that later, probably when in Cochin, he added to what he
had already written in Malacca. Though part of what he wrote
on China, Bengal and the Indian Archipelago may have been
written in India, he certainly wrote most of it when still in
Malacca. For instance, when describing the ‘Land of Surabaya’
(fol. i54r.) Pires says: ‘He {Pate Buhat) has already written to
this fortress (of Malacca), and they have written him twice.’
The way Afonso de Albuquerque is mentioned in the Pre-
face — ^which must have been one of the last things written —
shows that Pires had finished the Suma before the death of the
great Governor (i6 Dec. 1515). We can conclude that the
greater part of the Suma Oriental was written in Malacca, and
the rest in Cochin, during the years 15 12-15.
The Value of Tome Pires’ Work. The Suma Oriental was a
report sent to King Manuel, perhaps in discharge of a com-
mission taken by Tome Pires before he left Lisbon. His style
is far from clear, and no doubt it often becomes more confused
owing to the transcriber’s mistakes, which sometimes produced
words without any meaning, mainly when dealing with local
names or expressions. Some passages, as for instance at the end
of the description of Java, are almost impossible to translate, for
their meaning can hardly be guessed. Similar mistakes, com-
mitted by careless or unscrupulous transcribers, appear in other
contemporary manuscripts which are known only through
second-hand copies, as in the cases of the Book of Duarte Bar-
bosa and the Livro de Marmharia. But the translation of
Barbosa’s famous work is a less complicated task, for besides
Ramusio’s translation, made from a copy seen by Barbosa him-
INTRODUCTION
Ixxiv
self in Seville, there exists a Portuguese copy of the manuscript
printed in 1821, and made more understandable through
punctuation and revision.
The character of the Suma Oriental, devoted mostly to econo-
mics, does not afford many opportunities for literary brilliance.
But, in spite of the general poverty of style, Pires shows a culture
well above what might have been expected from a man of his
class, and there are occasional flashes from his pen. This is
especially noticeable in the Preface, where he tried his best,
although remarking modestly: T am a Lusitanian and a man of
the people, whose custom it is to belittle their glories and to
make too much of the bad things; and the work of composing
treatises or summaries is more for foreigners than for natives,
because they know how to adorn their compositions’. But then
he adds: ‘For instance, we see them tell wonders of the Mediter-
ranean Sea, which is a fifteen days’ voyage, always within sight
of land; so what would they do if they saw the famous eastern
conquest of all the ocean, in the course of which there were
things as deserving of remembrance and honour among men as
they were accounted worthy before God.’ There are other
passages in the Suma where Pires rises above dry description:
when, for example, he refers to ‘cool Ormuz . . . with all the
elegance of beautiful white women’ (fol. i22r.); or when he
remarks of the burning alive of widows in Blambangan that ‘thus
they lose their bodies in this life and their souls burn in the next’
(fol. 1 54V.). Nor is he lacking in a sense of humour, as when he
ends an interesting reference to the importance of Malacca with
the hint that there ‘you find what you want, and sometimes
more than you are looking for’. He never ceases to praise
Malacca, ‘end of monsoons and beginning of others’; ‘no trading
port as large as Malacca is known, nor any where they deal in
such fine and highly prized merchandise. Goods from all over
the East are found here; goods from all over the West are sold
here’ (fol. i6or.). Under the heading ‘Reason for the greatness of
Malacca’, together with his enthusiasm he discloses, perhaps
better than anywhere else, his vision, spirited criticism and
common sense, ending with these picturesque and revealing
sentences: ‘And true it is that this part of the world is rich and
INTRODUCTION
Ixxv
more prized than the world of the Indies, because the smallest
merchandise here is gold, which is least prized, and in Malacca
they consider it as merchandise. Whoever is lord of Malacca has
his hand on the throat of Venice. . . . Who understands this will
favour Malacca; let it not be forgotten, for in Malacca they prize
garlic and onions more than musk, benzoin, and other precious
things’ (fol. lySr.). Though he says that ‘a captain is sufficient
to rule and govern, with governors according to the nations of
the merchants’, he could not help adding, about the many
nationalities of the merchants living there, that ‘a Solomon was
needed to govern Malacca, and it deserves one’.
The prevailing note throughout the whole Suma is that of
honesty, which, no doubt, greatly enhances its value. Just as
Duarte Pacheco had said before him, ‘experience, which is the
mother of knowledge, removes all doubt and misapprehension’ ^
so too Fires says in the Preface: ‘We here have been through
everything, and experienced it and seen it.’ He does not fail to
emphasize his endeavours to find the truth: ‘The great island of
Java [i.e. his account of it] is finished; as well as I have been able to
examine and investigate it, verifying my facts with many people;
and whatever they seemed to me to agree about thoroughly,
that have I written down, and they certainly do not depart
from the truth’ (fol. 154V.). In the description of the ‘Islands
of Timor where the white sandalwood comes from’, Pires
asserts once more: ‘and I asked and enquired very diligently
whether they had this merchandise anywhere else, and every-
one said not’ (fol. 155V.). When he could not verify by himself,
he often says that he writes ‘according to the information I
obtained’. Referring to the Amboina and Banda islands and
the navigation about them, he is careful enough to state: ‘If
in what I say of these islands, together with Banda, I disagree
with the pilots, it is not my fault, because in this I am relying on
people who have been there; I have learnt this from Moors, from
their charts, which I have seen many times, and if their charts
are not to be trusted, let it be clear that this should be for reading
‘ Esmeralda de Situ Orbis, G. H. T. Kimble’s Hakluyt Society edition,
p. 12. Pacheco’s famous book was written in 1505-8 and published for the
first time in Lisbon 1892.
INTRODUCTION
Ixxvi
and not for navigation’ (fol. 156V.). After mentioning the imagi-
nary ‘breath-snakes’, he adds: ‘I have never met a man who has
seen one’ (fol, laSr,). About the story of the kings of Cambay
being ‘brought up on poison’, he remarks: ‘But I do not believe
this, although they say it is so’ (fol. 130V.). About the women of
Nias island who ‘are made pregnant by the wind’, he comments:
‘The people believe in this, as others believe in the Amazons and
the Sybil of Rome’ (fol. i46r.). Of the Papuan ‘men with big
ears who cover themselves with them’, he says: ‘I never saw any-
one who saw anyone else who had seen them. This story should
be given no more importance than it deserves’ (fol. i59r.)-
The first two books of the Suma Oriental have only a limited
interest, though they bring a valuable contribution to the study
of the countries covered by them; but the other four books
describe the until then almost unknown world beyond India, by
one who lived for two and a half years in the centre of the Far
Eastern countries, and visited some of them. Leaving aside the
accounts of medieval European travellers, Pires’ Suma contains
the first trustworthy information on the countries and islands
lying from Bengal to Japan. The information given about the
lands visited by himself is, of course, more valuable and vivid
than that which he obtained second-hand; but even the latter is
exceptionally interesting for the time, owing to the place where
he collected it and his official position, which brought him in
direct touch with the cosmopolitan world of oriental travellers,
ship’s captains, pilots and merchants who frequented Malacca,
to say nothing of the reports of many Portuguese. No need to
emphasize the especial value of the great wealth of first-hand
historical, geographical, ethnographical and commercial infor-
mation about each and all of the countries and peoples with
whom he dealt — it will be easily gathered from the text of the
Suma and, in many cases, from the accompanying notes. As an
instance, among many other important items, three may be
mentioned: we find here, for the first time, the name Japan,
which appears under the form Jampon\ Pires’ description of
Sumatra was not surpassed in detail and accuracy for a couple of
centuries; the information about Java, derived from his visit to
its north coast, is the most remarkable; the historical account of
INTRODUCTION Ixxvii
Malacca is not only the earliest known, but contains much
information not found elsewhere.
The Portuguese discoveries, from the first quarter of the
fifteenth century to the first quarter of the sixteenth, and the
invention of printing about 1450, were the two main factors in
that cosmopolitan enlightenment of the Renaissance, the foun-
dation of Western Civilization. The period of the discoveries
coincides with the golden century of Portuguese history. The
adventurous spirit of the Portuguese people led them to the
science of navigation, which enabled their ships to unveil the
mysteries of the great oceans and search out far distant lands,
many of them quite unknown to the world, or of which there
were only vague references in Europe. With the navigators went
the warriors, the missionaries, the merchants, and the men of
science and investigators, like Duarte Pacheco, D. Joao de
Castro, Garcia da Orta, Duarte Barbosa, Tome Pires and many
others. Their writings are imperishable monuments ^ The now
happily rediscovered Suma Oriental, the value of which was
probably surpassed by the later, now unfortunately lost,
accounts Pires no doubt wrote in China, is enough to win for him
an important place among those Portuguese who, extending and
developing their world discoveries, made a great contribution to
human knowledge and progress^. Above all. Tome Pires was the
* The Hakluyt Society alone has published some twenty-five volumes with
early Portuguese books of voyages and other geographical records, and many
more dealing in part with Portuguese discoveries and voyages.
^ Marsden wrote more than two and a half centuries after Pires: ‘The
Portuguese being better warriors than philosophers, and more eager to
conquer nations than to explore their manners and antiquities, it is not sur-
prising that they should have been unable to furnish the world with any
particular and just description of a country [Sumatra] which they must have
regarded with an evil eye.’ The History of Sumatra, Preface. Marsden did not
know, of course, of Pires’ Suma, neither did he know the Livro de Duarte
Barbosa-, he hardly even mentions the description made by Pinto of his visits
to Sumatra in 1539 {Peregrinagdo, xiii-xxxii). Marsden makes, however, this
curious and honest remark, hesitating between the bad reputation of Pinto
and his accuracy and proved reliability: ‘Many transactions of the reign of
this prince (about the years 1539 and 1541) are mentioned by Ferdinand
Mendez Pinto; but his writings are too apocryphal to allow of the facts being
recorded upon his authority. Yet there is the strongest internal evidence of
his having been more intimately acquainted with the countries of which we
are now speaking, the character of the inhabitants, and the political trans-
Ixxviii
INTRODUCTION
earliest sixteenth-century European to write a large, conscien-
tious and reliable description of the East as a result of his
personal observation. As with so many of his countrymen, and
many from other countries, he paid a high price for the privilege
of serving his fatherland and humanity.
THE PILOT AND CARTOGRAPHER FRANCISCO RODRIGUES
So little is known about Francisco Rodrigues that it is impos-
sible even to attempt a biographical sketch. Besides the informa-
tion we can gather from Rodrigues’ Book itself, he is mentioned
in two letters of Afonso de Albuquerque to King Manuel,
written from Cochin, i April and 20 August 1512; in the
Comentdrios^ iii, xxxvii; by Castanheda, iii, Ixxv; by Barros, ii,
vi, 7, and iii, vi, i; by Gois, iv, xxv. But all these simply mention
Rodrigues in connexion with some event in which he took part,
saying nothing about his origin and the rest of his life.
The first known reference to Rodrigues appears in Albu-
querque’s letter of i April 1512, in which he writes of a ‘piece of
map’ he is sending to the King. It was taken from ‘a large map
of a Javanese pilot, containing the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal
and the land of Brazil, the Red Sea and the Sea of Persia, the
Clove Islands, the navigation of the Chinese and the Gom, with
their rhumbs and direct routes followed by the ships, and the
hinterland, and how the kingdoms border on each other. It
seems to me. Sir, that this was the best thing I have ever seen,
and Your Highness will be very pleased to see it; it had the
names in Javanese writing, but I had with me a Javanese who
could read and write. I send this piece to Your Highness, which
Francisco Rodrigues traced from the other, in which Your
Highness can truly see where the Chinese and Gores come from,
and the course your ships must take to the Clove Islands, and
where the gold mines lie, and the islands of Java and Banda, of
actions of the period, than any of his contemporaries; and it appears highly
probable, that what he has related is substantially true: but there is also
reason to believe that he composed his work from recollection, after his
return to Europe, and he may not have been scrupulous in supplying from
a fertile imagination the unavoidable failures of a memory, however richly
stored.’ 428-9.
INTRODUCTION
Ixxix
nutmeg and maces, and the land of the king of Siam, and also
the end of the navigation of the Chinese, the direction it takes,
and how they do not navigate farther. The main map was lost in
Frol de la Mar. With the pilot and Pero de Alpoim I discussed the
meaning of this map, in order that they could explain it to Your
Highness; you can take this piece of map as a very accurate and
ascertained thing, because it is the real navigation, whence they
come and whither they return. The archipelago of the islands
called Celates, which lie between Java and Malacca, is missing’'.
In the other letter, of 20 Aug. 1512, Albuquerque informs the
King that he had sent a fleet to the Moluccas, under the com-
mand of Antonio de Abreu, one of the pilots of which was
‘Francisco Rodrigues, a young man who has been here, with
very good knowledge and able to make maps’. The Comentdrios
also mentions this voyage, as pilot of Abreu’s fleet, of ‘Francisco
Rodrigues, a young man who has always been in India as a pilot,
and he knew very well how to make a map if necessary, and this
is why he (Albuquerque) sent him there’.
Part of the maps and all the sketches contained in his Book
were drawn during, or as a result of, his voyage to Banda. Ro-
drigues must have drawn many maps, but unfortunately none has
reached us, apart from those in the Paris codex, as far as is known.
The Voyage of Discovery to the Spice Islands. After seiz-
ing Malacca in the middle of August 15 ii, and before sailing
back to India in December of the same year, Afonso de Albu-
querque sent ships with ambassadors to Pegu and Siam, and a
fleet of three vessels to discover the Spice Islands. The fleet was
commanded by Antonio de Abreu, in the ship Santa Catarina,
with Luis Botim as pilot; the second in command was Francisco
Serrao, in the ship Sabaia, with Gon9alo de Oliveira as pilot;
the third vessel, a caravel, was commanded by Simao Afonso
Bisagudo, with Francisco Rodrigues as pilot. In this armada
went 120 Portuguese, 60 slaves ‘to work the pumps’ and two
native pilots^. Though the chroniclers mention Rodrigues in the
» I have dealt at length with this map, and about Rodrigues as a carto-
grapher in my Cartografia, ii, 122—30.
2 Albuquerque himself, the Comentdrios, and Correia (ii, 265) mention two
native pilots, but Barros (iii, v, 6), says that ‘besides the Portuguese pilots,
Abreu took some Malay and Javanese who were used to that navigation’.
Ixxx INTRODUCTION
third place among the pilots, and Correia says that Gon9alo de
Oliveira was the pilot-major of the fleet', Rodrigues styles him-
self on the cover of his Book, ‘Pilot-major of the armada that dis-
covered Banda and the Moluccas.’ As the Sahaia, on which
Gon9alo de Oliveira was pilot, was shipwrecked shortly after
passing Java, and the junk in which Serrao was returning,
probably with Oliveira as pilot, was also shipwrecked shortly
after leaving Banda, it is possible that Oliveira — who after all
seems to have been either inefficient or unlucky — did not come
back with Abreu, and that Rodrigues was, in fact, the pilot-
major in the voyage from Banda to Malacca.
The small fleet sailed from Malacca perhaps in November
15112, All the chroniclers refer, with more or less detail, to this
voyage, but only Galvao and Barros, mainly the former, give
information which enables us to trace the itinerary of the fleet.
Barros says that from Malacca Abreu went to Grisee {Agacim),
Amboina, Banda, and back to Malacca. But Galvao writes: ‘At
the end of this year 15 ii, Afonso de Albuquerque sent three
ships to the islands of Banda and the Moluccas {Maluco). And
there went Antonio de Abreu as their captain-major, and one
Francisco Serrao; there were 120 persons in the ships — no more
vessels nor men went to discover New Spain with Christopher
Columbus, nor with Vasco da Gama to India, because the
Moluccas are no less wealthy than these, nor ought they to be
held in less esteem. They went through the strait of Sabam along
the island of Sumatra and in sight of many others — leaving them
on the left hand towards the east — ^which are called Selayat
(Salites), past the islands of Palembang (Palimbao) and Lucipara
{Lusuparam); from there they sailed by the noble island of
* When Albuquerque refers to the three Portuguese pilots, he mentions
Gon^alo de Oliveira first and Rodrigues last, though the latter is the only one
he distinguishes with the special reference of being 'a young man of very
good knowledge and able to make maps’.
2 Albuquerque says that Abreu’s fleet ‘sailed in the month of November,
two and a half months before I left’ (letter of 20 Aug. 1512). Though Correia
asserts that Albuquerque left Malacca for India on i Dec. 15 ii (ii, 268),
Galvao and Castanheda (iii, Ixxv) say that he left in January. The Comen-
tdrios and Correia confirm that Abreu sailed in November; Castanheda says at
the end of December; Fernao Peres de Andrade and Jorge Botelho (Cartas,
IV, 151 and 156), say December.
PLATE VI
Francisco Rodrigues’ Voyage of Discovery to the Spice Islands in 1512 (pp. Ixxix-lxxxiv)
PLATE VII
Francisco Rodrigues’ Voyage of Discovery in the Red Sea in 1513
(pp. Ixxxiv-lxxxvi, 291-5)
INTRODUCTION
Ixxxi
Java, and they set their course east, sailing between it and the
island of Madura {Madeira).' Then Galvao describes the people
of Java and continues: ‘Beyond the island of Java they sail along
another called Bali (Balle), and another close to it called Lom-
bok (Anjano), Sumbawa (Simbaba), Flores and Solor (Solor),
Adunare and Kawula (o Galao), Malua or Alor {Mauluoa),
Wettar {Vitara), Rozengain {Rosolanguim) and Aru (Arus ) —
whence are brought the dried birds which are much valued for
plumes — and others lying in the same parallel on the south side
in seven or eight degrees of latitude, and so near to each other
that it seems like a single land. The course along these islands
must be above five hundred leagues; the cosmographers called
them the Jaoas, though now they have different names as you
see here. They say that beyond these islands there are others
inhabited by white people . . After this digression Galvao
returns to Abreu’s voyage from Madura onwards; ‘Antonio de
Abreu and those that went with him set their course toward the
north of a small island called Gunong Api (Gumuape), because
from its highest point streams of fire run continuously to the sea,
which is a wonderful thing to behold. From there they went to
the islands of Bum {Burro) and Amboina {Damboino), coasted
along that [island] called Ceram {Muar Damboino), and anchored
in a haven called Guli Guli . . . where they burnt the ship in
which Francisco Serrao was, for she was already old, and they
went to Banda, which is in eight degrees on the south side,
where they loaded cloves, nutmeg and mace in a junk that Fran-
cisco Serrao bought there ... In the year 1512 they sailed from
Banda towards Malacca, and in the shoals of Lucipara and
Turtle Islands {Lusopino) Francisco Serrao was shipwrecked
with his junk; from there he went back as far as the island of
Mindanao (?) {Midanao) with nine or ten Portuguese who were
with him, and the king of the Moluccas sent for them. These
were the first Portuguese {Espanhoes) that came to the Clove
Islands, which lie from the equinoctial towards the north one
degree, where they stayed seven or eight years. Antonio de
Abreu made his way to Malacca, having discovered all the sea
and land [above] named^.’
‘ Tratado, ff. 35-6.
/
H.C.S. I.
Ixxxii INTRODUCTION
Besides the data supplied by Barros and Galvao, some infor-
mation can be gathered from other documents, mainly some of
the maps and drawings of Rodrigues himself. On the map on
fol. 36 we find the inscription pude hotnde sse perdeo a ssabaia
(Pude, where the Sahaia was lost) corresponding to Sapudi
island which lies near the easternmost point of Madura. Two of
the drawings (fols. 94 and 95) show Sapudi island with the in-
scription aqui se perdeo a sabaiaj j & esta Jlha se chama pude
(here the Sahaia was lost, and this island is called Pude) at the
south-eastern point of the island, which is recognizable by the
small island Raas {Jlha de Raz) complete with the three islets
near its eastern points Diogo Brandao says, in the evidence he
gave in the ‘Process of the Moluccas’, that after the loss of
Serrao’s ship, the other ship and the caravel went ‘near Banda
but could not reach it on account of adverse weather, and they
had to winter in a haven 25 leagues from Banda, called Gule
Gule {Gullygully)\ and, the weather becoming favourable, three
months later they went to Banda’^, Rui de Brito Patalim states
in the same ‘Process of the Moluccas’ that, after Serrao’s ship
was lost, ‘the two [remaining] vessels went to Banda because the
weather was not favourable for going to the Moluccas^.’ Some
other information, though indirect, may be gathered from a
rutter from Malacca to Java and Banda, dating from the first
half of the sixteenth century, contained in Livro de Marinharia.
It says that when a ship arrives off Cape Flores she must sail
towards Batu Tara or Komba, a small island twenty-five miles to
the north of Lomblen, then go north-eastwards, and after passing
Lucipara {Gilimdo) she must follow the course north-north-east
which will take her to Burn, from where she will sail south-
eastwards and reach Banda (p. 267). Pires himself wrote: ‘From
it (Batu Tara) the route is straight ahead for Banda and Am-
boina; . . . the other islands along by Solor are not much good
for trade because they are out of reach’ (fol. 155V.), No doubt
this was the route followed by Abreu, and so Rodrigues recorded
* These statements of Rodrigues cannot be contradicted, because he was
there, and what he says is confirmed by the evidence of Diogo Brandao, of
Jorge de Albuquerque and of Andrade, although, besides Galvao ’s informa-
tion, Barros says that Serrao’s ship was lost between Amboina and Banda.
2 Cartas, iv, 170. ^ p_ if)y_
INTRODUCTION
Ixxxiii
it on his map (fol. 37). This map — which covers the Flores Sea,
the Banda Sea and the Moluccas — has only thirteen names
and inscriptions, seven of which refer to the said route: Cape
Flores — Batu Tara — Buru — ^Amboina — Ceram — Gule Gule —
Banda.
With these elements the itinerary of Abreu’s expedition from
Malacca to Banda can be traced as follows: passing through the
channel between Kundur island and Sumatra, and through
Banka strait, they reached Grisee, in north-east Java, where
they landed for the first time; sailing eastwards Serrao’s ship
was lost at the south-eastern point of Sapudi island; they
sighted Batu Tara and then Gunong Api, landed at Buru and
Amboina, sailed along the south coast of Ceram, anchored at
Gule Gule, where the two remaining vessels were delayed by
bad weather, and finally sailed to Banda^
A junk was bought there for Serrao, and the three ships, after
loading, set out on the return voyage. Shortly after they left
Banda they ran into a storm and Serrao’s junk parted from the
^ In his essay h' oeuvre geographique des Reinel et la decouverte des Moluques,
Hamy dealt with Antdnio de Abreu’s voyage, analysing Rodrigues’ map and
Galvao’s description. According to Hamy, instead of sailing directly to Batu
Tara and Gunong Api, and then going north, straight to Buru — as he really
did — after Java, Abreu would have carried on along the chain of islands,
which lie to the east, as far as Am (530 miles east of the meridian Gunong Api
— Buru), from where he would have returned west, discovered Banda, gone
to Bum (more than 200 miles west-north- west), returned again eastwards,
going to Gule Gule, and from there returned directly to Malacca. This
strange interpretation is due mainly to a mistranslation of a word in Galvao’s
description. After describing the people of Java, Galvao writes: ‘Beyond the
island of Java they sail (or go = vam or “vao”) along another called Bali’, etc.,
meaning the people of Java (a gente desta ylha), whom he refers to in the
previous sentence, not Abreu and his companions. When Galvao refers to
the latter {Antonio Dabreu & os que com elle hiam), he always uses the past
tense ‘they went’ {foram), ‘they took their course’ {tomaram sua derrota), and
so forth. The same mistake was committed by Hakluyt, when he translated
vam into ‘they sailed’, a mistake which Bethune overlooked in his Hakluyt
Society’s edition of Galvao’s Tratado (p. 116). Hamy had to adapt all his
interpretation to the mistranslation of the word vam, which led him to other
mistakes (see note p. 204, and my article O Itinerdrio de Antonio de Abreu, in
Seara Nova, No. 796, 14 Nov. 1942, Lisbon).
Abreu arrived at Malacca in December 1512 and left with F. P. Andrade
for India in January 1513 (Castanheda, iii, cii), and then sailed for Portugal.
He died in the Azores before reaching the mother country, according to the
evidence of Sequeira in the ‘Process of the Moluccas’, and Barros, iii, v, 6.
Ixxxiv introduction
other vessels and was shipwrecked on the Lucipara islets and
shoals. Eventually Serrao and nine Portuguese who were with
him reached the Moluccas, where he continued living till his
death, which occurred probably at the beginning of 1521.
Abreu’s ship and the caravel proceeded on their course until
they sighted an island which Rodrigues represents in the first of
his panoramic drawings, with an inscription saying that ‘This
was the first land we sighted when we came from Banda to
Malacca’. Though another inscription on the same drawing says
that it is the ‘Beginning of the island of Solor’, it must corre-
spond to Alor island (see note on Solor, p. 202). They followed
westwards along the north coast of the chain of islands, Ro-
drigues’ panoramic views being drawn as seen from the sea. The
last seventeen of the sixty-eight drawings correspond to Java,
and the last of them, which must have been drawn off Cape
Krawang, north-east of modern Batavia, has an inscription
saying: ‘And as far as this we discovered the island of Java.’
Then they sailed north-westwards and reached Malacca in
December 1512, one year after they had started on their voyage.
Of the 120 Portuguese who had left for the discovery of the
Spice Islands, only 80 returned to Malacca; 10 remained there
and 30 died during the voyage. See plate VI.
The Expedition to the Red Sea. The next news of Fran-
cisco Rodrigues is given by himself in his Booky when he
describes the ‘Voyage that I made with Joao Gomes, captain of
the caravel, to Dahlak’ (fol. 5r.). This voyage took place in June-
July 1513, when a Portuguese fleet under the command of
Afonso de Albuquerque entered the Red Sea for the first time.
We do not know exactly what happened to Rodrigues when he
returned to Malacca in December 1512, but he did not stay
there long, and he probably sailed to India with Fernao Peres de
Andrade and Antonio de Abreu in January 1513. By that time
Albuquerque was in Goa assembling the fleet of twenty sail in
which he went with 1700 Portuguese and about a thousand
natives' to the Red Sea. In his letter of 4 Dec. 1513, written
* All chroniclers agree that there were 1700 Portuguese, but they differ
regarding the number of Malabars and Kanarese; they also agree as to the
number of sail, except Correia, who says 24, and Castanheda 19.
INTRODUCTION
Ixxxv
from Cannanore to King Manuel, describing at great length the
expedition to the Red Sea, Albuquerque does not give the date
he set sail from Goa, and the chroniclers are at great variance.
Correia says Jan. 28, the Comentdrios Feb. 8, Barros and Gois
Feb. 18, Castanheda only says ‘March 1513’. The fact that in
Dec. 1512 Rodrigues was in Malacca, which he left perhaps at
the beginning of Jan. 1513, and that he reached Goa in time to
sail with Albuquerque’s fleet, shows that the date indicated by
Barros and Gois, or even that given by Castanheda more
vaguely, must be nearer the truth.
The armada set sail to Cape Guardafui, went to Sokotra, and
then proceeded to Aden. After an unsuccessful attempt to seize
the town (March 27), Albuquerque sailed towards the Red Sea,
which he entered in April. His idea was to go to Suez and de-
stroy the fleet which, according to intelligence he had gathered,
the Sultan of Egypt was mustering in order to attack the Portu-
guese in India; but the monsoon was already nearing its end.
The fleet passed beyond the island of Kamaran till it reached the
islands Okban, Kotame and Entufash, where it lay at anchor for
several days, waiting for favourable winds which would allow it
to proceed; but as the winds did not blow, and drinking water
was lacking, Albuquerque returned to Kamaran at the beginning
of June. It was then that he decided to send Joao Gomes’ cara-
vel, mentioned by Rodrigues, to explore as far as Dahlak and
Massawa. Albuquerque in his letter of 4 Dec. to King Manuel
reported as follows: ‘Returning to Kamaran for the second time,
and having decided to make ready to sail in August, I determined
to send the caravel out to sea to try to get di jelba^, in order to
obtain some news of the land, for throughout the whole year the
strait is navigated by these small rowing or sailing jelbas. I
ordered her to try to reach the island of Dahlak (Dalaca) and
Massuwa (Mefud), and I gave her a pilot from the same land.
And with this I did not mean more than to send Joao Gomes in
the caravel to spend some days discovering land throughout this
strait wherever he could. He managed so well that he reached
the island of Dahlak and some islands near it, where there are
pearl fisheries; he could not get a [jelba], because they are light
‘ A small native boat used on the shores of the Red Sea.
Ixxxvi INTRODUCTION
and swift craft, which led him through those shoals and sand-
banks in such a way that he did not follow the true navigation
route. He arrived at Dahlak and moored off some shoals in the
harbour. The caravel’s skiff went ashore; the people did not care
to ask who they were, for throughout the whole strait our entry
had been known for some days and the place warned, in such a
manner that I certify Your Highness that no more boats or
almadias^ came out, nor did birds light on the sea, so stupefied
was the Red Sea with our arrival, and so deserted. They only
asked them what they wanted. Joao Gomes told them that I had
ordered him to go there, and if they wanted merchandise he
would sell it. They answered that there were no merchants in
the land, only fighting men. And so they took leave of them, and
went around the island and explored it thoroughly. As he had no
certain instructions from me, he did not draw near to the main
land of Prester John, called Harkiko {Arquico), which could be
seen as clearly as Ribatejo from Lisbon. Massawa lies farther, in
a bay along the coast, one day’s voyage^. After he had seen
everything and discovered all those islands around there, he
returned by the main deep-sea route, through which the mer-
chant ships sail. And he did no more than I have said, because
he had no other directions or instructions from me, but to dis-
cover the way, with the idea of our going there, should some
wind arise that would enable us to sail; for if I had entirely mis-
trusted the weather, I should have provided better in this case,
and men I had ready with instructions and letters to send to
Prester John. These men they would have set on the main land
in charge of his captains, who would have taken them [with
them]. I believe he would have done all this, trustworthy man
that he is. And he brought me Dahlak painted (on a map), and
the islands and sea, the best he could. I am sending this map to
Your Highness’. 3 Barros also says that Joao Gomes brought ‘the
* A small native boat.
^ This part of Albuquerque’s letter does not agree entirely with Rodrigues
when he says ‘we ran along the coast of Abyssinia for nine or ten days without
seeing . . . any manner of port nor a place where we could disembark’ (fol. 6v.).
In fact the island of Massawa lies four or five miles north-north-east of
Harkiko.
3 Cartas, i, 320-1.
INTRODUCTION
Ixxxvii
islands mapped as they lay, without anything else’U The pilot of
Gomes’ caravel was one Domingos Fernandes^, so Rodrigues
was probably sent by Albuquerque with the special task of sur-
veying that part of the Red Sea. Though from the reference of
Albuquerque and Barros, mainly the former, it might seem that
Gomes himself had made the map sent to King Manuel, we may
now safely assume that Rodrigues was its author ^ It is, how-
ever, somewhat strange that Rodrigues does not mention such a
map, or that it was not included in his Book. See plate VII.
By the end of August Albuquerque was back in India.
After the expedition to the Red Sea, no more is known of
Rodrigues until 1519, when he went to China with Simao Peres
de Andrade, as we have seen before. Barros says that Andrade’s
ship was joined in Malacca by three junks, one of which was
commanded by Rodrigues, but Gois mentions three ships [naos)
instead of junks. The squadron arrived in the Canton River in
August 1519. In the biographical note on Tome Pires I have
already dealt at length with this disastrous expedition of
Andrade. There Rodrigues again met Pires, whom he had
known at least in Malacca, when in December 1512 he returned
from the expedition to the Spice Islands.
This is all that is known about Francisco Rodrigues. Viscount
de Santarem says that he was a pilot born in the Azores, who in
1553 was serving with the English when Thomas Windham
(called Tomas de Gidom, or Gidne, in contemporary Portu-
guese documents) attacked Madeira'*. The name is a common
one, and elsewhere it has been shown to be highly improbable that
the two pilots are one and the same person^. Many other name-
’ Decada ii, viii, 2. ^ Comentdrios, iv, ix.
^ Joao Gomes, who, as Barros (ll, vii, 5) says, was ‘nicknamed Cheira-
dinheiro' (Scent-money), is frequently mentioned by the chroniclers but
never as a mapmaker. He was killed in 1519 in the Maldives, where he had
gone with an expedition to build a fortress in the island of Mafacalou (possi-
bly a contraction of Male and Farukalu), and by the depredations and
robberies he practised there he certainly justified the nickname. Gois, iv,
xxxii; Correia, ii, 568-70.
Quadro Diplomdtico, ii, pp. Ixxv seqq.\ J. Blake, Europeans in West Africa,
1450-1560, p. 221.
5 Viterbo, Trabalhos Nauticos dos Portuguezes, ll, 252-5; A. Cortesao,
Cartografia, ii, 129-30.
Ixxxviii
INTRODUCTION
sakes of Francisco Rodrigues appear in the chronicles and
documents referring to the first half of the sixteenth century,
but they have nothing in common w^ith the pilot, cartographer
and captain, who left his valuable Book to posterity.
THE BOOK OF FRANCISCO RODRIGUES
The Book of Francisco Rodrigues occupies the first part of
the Paris codex. The original numeration was cut away in bind-
ing, and the present numeration, added probably when the codex
was bound, begins on the second fly-leaf and goes up to ii6.
The numbers given in the original table of contents do not
correspond with the present numeration, which causes much
confusion. For instance, fols. 12 and 14 in the original table of
contents correspond with present fols. 9 and 10, and fols. 20
and 22 with 14 and 15, which might indicate that what Rodri-
gues calls folios {folhas) were actually pages and that some folios
are missing. But, besides the anomaly of some even numbers
corresponding with rectos of folios, it happens that fol. 17 of
the original table corresponds with 1 1 of the present numeration,
22 with 15) 26 to 34 with 18 to 26, and 36 to 38 with 27 to 29.
The next 87 folios are not included in the table of contents.
Fols. 2 v., 3v., 4v., 7v., 8r., 9V., 14V., 15V. and i6v., the versos of
fols. 17 to 36, 38 to 85, and 87 to 112, ii3r., and the versos of
fols. 1 14 to 1 16, of the present numeration, are blank. All the
writing, in text, maps and drawings, seems to be in Rodrigues’
hand. The highly ornamented word Emmanuel, at the head of the
first page, shows that Rodrigues dedicated his Book to King
Manuel. See plate XXVIII.
The somewhat mixed contents of Rodrigues’ Book can be
grouped under four distinct headings: nautical rules, rutters,
maps, and panoramic drawings. After these have been described
it will be possible to study the problem of the date of the Book's
composition.
Nautical Rules. Fols. 7v.-i6r. and 86 contain nautical rules
{Regimentos). The first rules, signed twice Framcisquo Rooiz or
Roiz, are for ascertaining the latitude at noon, the position of the
observer to the Sun in relation to the equator being known- these
PLATE VIII
Rodrigues’ panoramic drawing (fol. 58) of Sukur Island or Rusa Linguette, seen from
the south. It agrees in every detail with a modern description (pp. xci-xcii)
Rodrigues’ panoramic drawing (fol. 54) of part of an island, perhaps Adunare (p. 526)
INTRODUCTION
Ixxxix
rules are illustrated by a curious figure, in colours, for the
graphic determination of the Sun’s declination (plate XXXI).
They are followed by a table of the Sun’s declination for a leap
year only. Next comes a ‘Canon of leagues’, much used by the
Portuguese, for ascertaining the distance sailed along any point
of the compass, for each degree of latitude, reckoned at 17^
leagues in one case and at i6| in the other. The first case is
illustrated with a figure in colours showing a compass rose for
measuring a degree in leagues (plate XXXIII). Finally, Ro-
drigues gives a regimento for ascertaining the Sun’s declination,
with some confused examples, and goes on to discuss the matter
in a ‘Chapter to explain how you should navigate by shadows’.
These nautical rules must be copied from manuscript regi-
mentos which, after the end of the fifteenth century, passed from
hand to hand among the Portuguese pilots. Some of these rules
or instructions are found in the famous so-called Regimento de
Munich, the earliest known edition of which dates from 1509 (?)
though it must have been printed before, perhaps in 1495 (?).
Such is the case with the first figure for determining the
Sun’s declination and the table of the Sun’s declination for a
leap year. The whole matter is duly dealt with, at some length,
in the notes to the text^
Rutters. The description of Rodrigues’ voyage of explora-
tion and survey to Dahlak, which carried him on in sight of the
coast of Abyssinia, is the first rutter in the Book. This voyage
has been dealt with above and in the notes to the text. The other
rutter, rather schematic, is called ‘Route to China’, i.e., sailing
from Malacca to the Canton River, and is discussed in a note to
the text (pp. 302-3). They will be referred to again later in
this Introduction.
Maps. There are twenty-six maps or charts in the Book, each
occupying the recto of one folio. There are also four folios
intended for maps which were never drawn; one has only a
' These notes were sketched in 1937 by the late Commander Prof. A.
Fontoura da Costa, an authority on early Portuguese navigation. They were
to some extent developed by Commander D. Gernez, of the French Navy,
now in London. The former had undertaken to write a more detailed study
of Rodrigues’ nautical rules, intended to form a special section of this
Introduction, but unfortunately he died 7 Dec. 1940 (b. 9 Dec. 1869).
XC INTRODUCTION
system of wind roses, two have a central wind rose and a scale
of leagues, and the other shows a scale of leagues only.
The Viscount de Santarem had facsimiles made of the twenty-
six maps and reproduced them in his Atlas of 1849^ These fac-
similes, especially when in colours, are beautifully done, but of
those of the maps with scales of latitudes and of leagues, only
no. 4, corresponding to fol. 18, is complete; the others lack
the scale of latitudes (except no. 16, corresponding to fol. 30,
which has part of it), and some also the scale of leagues. This
omission of non-essential parts of the maps was made, obviously,
in order to save space. But there were slips too on the part of
the copyist; for example, the wind rose on no. 7, corresponding
to fol. 21, is incomplete, and on no. 20, corresponding to fol. 37,
the word amhom (Amboina) is missing. The order of the repro-
ductions in Santarem’s Atlas, numbered i to 26, corresponds
with the following order of the MS folios: 116, 115, 114, 18 to
35, 37, 36, 38 to 42. In Estudos de Cartographia Antiga (ii, 148-
56) we find a description of the maps by Santarem, sometimes
very detailed, but with too many inaccuracies^.
* Though this Atlas is dated 1849, it comprises the maps published in the
two previous editions, of 1841 and 1842, plus the maps engraved, or distri-
buted, between 1845 and 1855. I have written elsewhere, at length, on the
Viscount de Santarem and his monumental work. Cartografia, ii, 365-404.
Besides the note (the precise date of which we do not know) published in
Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, the first reference made by Santarem to Rodri-
gues’ Book and its maps is found in a letter he addressed from Paris, 12 Oct.
1850, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lisbon, which financed the publi-
cation of the Atlases, stating that he ‘had just discovered the portolano of
the Portuguese pilot Francisco Rodrigues, of 1529’. In another letter of 15
Feb. 1851 he reported on the state of his work. On Nov. 1851 he wrote that
four of the maps had already been engraved, and on 28 Jan. 1853 he reported
the engraving of the other twenty-two maps of Rodrigues. These documents
were published in 1909 by Jordan de Freitas, 02° Visconde de Santarem e os
sens Atlas Geographicos, pp. 114-23. On 5 June 1854 Santarem sent to the
Ministry a list of fifty-seven copies of the Atlas he had presented before 9
April 1851 (new sheets were sent, or were supposed to be sent, loose later, as
they were being engraved) to several learned institutions and personalities in
various countries.
2 For example, the map (fol. 22), with the outline of the Brazilian coast, is
given as ‘West coast of South Africa’. Many mistakes, like this particular one,
are probably due to the difficulty of interpreting Santar^m’s writing; but
others were undoubtedly made by him. Two instances: When describing
the sketch with the Gulf of Tong-King (fol. 38), he writes — ‘On the wind
rhumb is written the word Varia, which seems to indicate the compass
INTRODUCTION
XCl
The maps, following the order in which they occur in the
Book, can be divided in five groups: {a) The first nine maps,
from Europe to East Africa, are drawn on the approximate scale
I : 13,000,000 and are more or less copied from existing Portu-
guese prototypes; (6) the three from North-east Africa to Malacca
are drawn on the same scale and contain a quantity of new
information; (c) the six from Sumatra to the Moluccas are drawn
on various scales from i : 4,500,000 to nearly i : 8,000,000 and
are entirely new; {d) the five maps from Malacca to north China,
which are entirely new, though simple sketches; {e) the three
maps with the Mediterranean and Black Sea are drawn on the
approximate scale i : 6,000,000 and follow existing prototypes.
All the maps but the last three have the word norte, in small
writing, near the end of the rhumb line from the central wind rose
which points northwards. These maps, which are reproduced
from photographs for the first time in the present work, are
described in Appendix II.
Panoramic Drawings. These occupy the rectos of 69 folios —
43 to 85 and 87 to 1 1 2. Only the first drawing is in colours; the
last twenty-four drawings show only the outline of beaches and
mountains, but the first forty-five show also plants, native houses
and the natives themselves.
All these drawings were made when Rodrigues was returning
from Banda to Malacca, as he saw the land from the sea, sailing
along the north coast of the chain of islands from Alor to western
Java. The outlines of mountains and sea coasts are continuous
through almost all the drawings, as if separate drawings were
cut from a general one; this forms a remarkably accurate view of
these islands as seen from the sea. Most of the mountains, bays,
and villages shown can easily be identified if we compare the
drawings with, for instance, the Eastern Archipelago Pilot,
vol. II. For example, the Pilot says: ‘Sukur island or Rusa Lin-
variation in these regions.’ ‘Varia’ is simply a misreading of the word norte,
which is written on twenty-three of the twenty-six maps, indicating the north.
On the description of the sketch with the Canton River (fol. 40) Santar6m
wrote: ‘At the head we read, in Chinese characters, the name of a city, and
next — Cidade da China.’ The ‘Chinese characters’ are simply a flourished
letter A. But these were only notes, published posthumously, without any
editing, and rather carelessly; Santar^m was too careful and scrupulous to
publish them without previous checking.
Xcii INTRODUCTION
guette has a conspicuous summit, 865 feet {262^7) high, on its
north-eastern side, probably the remains of an old crater; the
western side of this peak descends very steeply to a fresh-water
lake. ... In the south-western part the island is low and flat.
The entire island is wooded, but uninhabited. There is a sandy
beach along the west coast, and the east coast is rocky; the north
and south coasts are alternately sandy and rocky. A rock, with a
single tree on it, lies on the coastal reef extending about two
cables from the south-east point of the island.’ This description
corresponds exactly with the drawing of the Jlha Nusaramgeti
(fol. 58), even to the ‘rock with a single tree on it’. See plate VIII.
The note of realism given to many of the first forty-five draw-
ings, with the representation of volcanoes in activity, houses,
plants and natives, is sometimes particularly vivid, as in fol. 60.
This no doubt represents the village of Mausambi, in Flores,
which appears in the drawing just east of Raja Island, and shows
a native palace or temple surrounded by a palisade of stakes,
houses, plants and several natives, one of them climbing a coco-
nut palm, the other on top of a hill shooting with a bow at a
strange bird (perhaps a nore, a variety of parrot which Rodrigues
saw in Amboina, Ceram or Banda) perched on a lofty mountain
(probably Olo Muku, 3006 ft.) only the summit of which is
visible. The drawings are described in Appendix II.
One of the curious features of these drawings is the rather
artistically drawn plants which decorate many of them. It
appears that Rodrigues wanted to give some idea of the local
flora, but if that is the case he made a very imperfect attempt, and
his drawings are of little use for identifying the plants. The
coconut palm {Cocus nucifera Linn.) is the only species which
can be identified with certainty; it appears in several of the
drawings, near the shore. A grass which figures on nearly all
the drawings is probably Imperata cylindrica Beauv., a species
with silvery spikes which is common in the Malayan islands and
would probably attract the attention of any one sketching the
flora. This grass comes up in large quantities wherever the
ground is cleared, and soon becomes a pest. It is known to the
Malays as alang-alang. The grass-drawings are not all uniform,
but it seems that this species must be intended. Another species
INTRODUCTION
XClll
whose identity is almost certain is Gynandropsis gynandra Briq.,
a widespread tropical weed; this appears in drawing fol, 63. A
plant with broad heart-shaped leaves, which appears in some of
the drawings, looks like Alocasia macrorrhiza Schott, an Aroid
much cultivated in Malaya. Apart from the above it is not
possible to make any suggestion with confidence ^
The Date of Rodrigues’ Book. Rodrigues’ Book, com-
posed of several distinct parts, was written and drawn over a
period of years. When the Viscount de Santarem reproduced
Rodrigues’ maps in the Atlas of 1849 described them in the
note in Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, he said that they were
drawn between 1524 and 1530; but he did not give the reason
for his assertion. The first nine maps, of the western European,
Brazilian and African coasts, and the last three, of the Medi-
terranean and Black seas, are copied from prototypes now more
or less known and their interest is limited; but the fourteen maps
from Suez to China, mainly those of the Far East, which are
entirely new, are of exceptional importance and their dating has
particular interest for the history of the cartography of those
regions; they therefore deserve special attention. The dating of
these maps of the East Indies has been studied by C. H, Coote,
E. T. Hamy, G. Collingridge, J. Denuce and E. C. Abendanon.
After discussing the problem in my Cartografia, I came to
the conclusion ‘that it cannot be said, as some of the above
authors have done, that the date of the Atlas (i.e., Rodrigues’
maps of the Eastern Archipelago) is 15 1 1-13 or ±1512, because
it was made a little after 1512, though it does not seem an
easy task to determine its precise date — unless some document
can be found which will supply us with elements so far un-
known’ (ii, 129).
Rodrigues drew or at least completed his maps at different
dates, as can be seen at once from the part which comprises
the nautical rules and the maps as far as Malacca, mentioned
^ Mr. J. E. Dandy, of the British Museum (Natural History), to whom I
owe the above information on the botanical aspect of the drawings, tells me
that Mr. I. H. Burkill, a botanist with first-hand knowledge of the Malayan
flora, ‘thinks that the author of the drawings, judged by his pen-work, was a
bit of an artist, and that he was just playing with the forms he saw — designing
in fact.’
XCIV
INTRODUCTION
in the original table of contents, and all the other matter
rutters, the last fourteen maps, and the panoramic drawings not
mentioned in the table of contents. No doubt the map which shows
the eastern part of the Red Sea (fob 27) was drawn before
Rodrigues’ expedition to Dahlak and the coast of Abyssinia in
1513, otherwise he would have represented on the map the
islands he saw, which he does not. On the other hand, the
inscription agoada de Joham lopez dalluimj die descobriu daqui
ate Japara (Watering place of Joao Lopes de Alvim. He dis-
covered from here to Japara), on the map with north-western
Java (fol. 30), refers to a voyage made in March 1513 (see
p. 521 ). This shows that the map was drawn after that date. It
might be argued that this inscription was added some time after
the map had been drawn, but its names and inscriptions seem
to have been written at one and the same time. It is not easy to
find on the other maps any indication which might lead to an
exact determination of their date. The only conclusion we can
reach is that some of the maps, as those with the Red Sea and
India (fols. 27, 28) or at least the former, were made before
April 1513, when Albuquerque entered the Red Sea. But they
must have been made at the beginning of 15 ii or not much
before, because it is not very likely that Rodrigues, the ‘young
man’ referred to by Albuquerque, had much time to draw
them before the seizure of Malacca in August and his sailing for
the discovery of the Spice Islands in December of that year. The
other twelve eastern maps (between fols. 29 and 42) were drawn
in 1513 or shortly afterwards, probably with the help of
sketches and notes gathered during the voyage of 1512 and
information obtained from oriental pilots.
Rodrigues certainly drew these maps before his voyage to the
Canton River in 1519. We can even infer that they were not
drawn after or much after 1513. The rutter from Malacca to the
Canton River, written on the verso of fol. 37, facing the first of
the maps connected with the route to China, indicates that it
was added after they had been drawn. This rutter was obviously
based on information gathered from some oriental pilot, possibly
Chinese, before Rodrigues had direct news from the first Portu-
guese who went to China in 1513 and returned to Malacca about
{Itiw dv
INTRODUCTION
XCV
the middle of 1514 (see note p. 120), otherwise it would not be
so schematic, and probably the distances would have been given
in leagues, not in nativeyao^ (note pp. 302-3). Rodrigues was in
India by the end of August 1513, back from the Red Sea. We do
not know whether he remained there or went again to Malacca,
but we may assume that he received the information reporting
the voyage of Alvim to Java in March 1513, just before or when
he was drawing the maps of the Eastern Archipelago and the
Far East which are contained in his Book.
In the rule to ascertain the Sun’s declination by the shadows
(fol. 86r.), Rodrigues gives an example for the year 1520, related
to a Perpetual Almanach of 1508, which might suggest that
this part of the Book was written in 1520, after Rodrigues had
gone to China in 1519. But if this was so, we can hardly explain
why the Book does not contain a better rutter and better maps
recording the voyage from Malacca to the Canton River. The
year 1520 referred to was, in all probability, a mere example
without any bearing on the actual year of the writing.
It seems from all this that Rodrigues’ Book was abruptly sent
to Lisbon, perhaps on some urgent official demand, shortly
after he drew the maps of the Eastern Archipelago and China,
i.e., about 1514. In fact he had no time to complete some maps
for which folios were prepared but never used, nor could he
finish the panoramic drawings of Java, left in outline, but
which he probably intended to decorate like the others. Though
positive evidence is scant and much of the deduction has to be
circumstantial, we come to the conclusion that Rodrigues’ Book
was finished not later than 1514, and that the maps of the East-
ern Archipelago and the Far East, the most important of all, can
be dated circa 1513.
Value of Francisco Rodrigues’ Work. Rodrigues’ Book is
an important document for the history of geography. Some of
its components, for instance, the nautical rules and part of the
maps, may be regarded simply as contributions towards the
study of a subject already well documented in contemporary and
earlier sources; students, however, may find in them abundant
matter for speculation and discussion. As regards the rutters
of the voyage to Dahlak and the route from Malacca to China,
xcvi
INTRODUCTION
the twelve maps of the Eastern Archipelago and coasts from the
Bay of Bengal to China, and the panoramic drawings of the
southern islands of the Eastern Archipelago, these are entirely
new, and their value and importance are paramount.
Both the rutters have the particular interest of being the first
known, at least in a modern European language, for any specific
voyage in the Red Sea and in the Far East. It is much to be
regretted that the rutters of Rodrigues’ voyages to the Spice
Islands in 1512 and to China in 1519, which he probably wrote,
have not come down to us. We can hardly understand why he
did not include in his Book a rutter of the voyage to Banda. Per-
haps he was unable to finish it in time, before the Book was
suddenly sent to Lisbon. As regards a map of the Red Sea made
during or after the expedition of 15 13, it may be assumed that he
drew such a map and that it was sent by Albuquerque to King
Manuel, as stated above. With his taste for writing about his
voyages and observations, and the skill shown in his carto-
graphical work, there is no doubt that Rodrigues wrote much
more and drew many more maps, all now unfortunately lost.
The six maps representing the Eastern Archipelago constitute
the most important part of the Book, because they are the first of
that part of the world ever drawn by an European as the result
of his direct observation. The sequence of panoramic drawings,
though comparatively less important, is apparently unmatched
and full of interest, their accuracy being remarkable.
Francisco Rodrigues’ Book and the Suma Oriental of Tome
Pires, written about the same time, complement each other to
some extent. Their inclusion in the same codex was as natural
as is their publication together in the present edition.
THE SUMA ORIENTAL
OF TOME FIRES
PREFACE Foi. Iiyr.
To the most serene prince, the most high and
most powerful King the King our Lord, here
begins the preface to the Suma Oriental (Account
of the East).
I T is natural for men to desire knowledge, as the master of
philosophy testifies; and as this desire is active and fervent in
each one according to what befits him, it is not without merit
that it is stronger in your Royal Majesty than in any other prince
in the world, for your dominions are the greatest. Who does not
know that they stretch from the beginning of Africa to China,
including the whole of Africa and Asia and part of Europe along
the sea coast, with an infinity of islands, [and that they are] very
great, rich and very populous within their boundaries, in which
dominions there, are many provinces, and a large number of
kingdoms and a multitude of regions over which your Royal
Highness is lord, with beautiful and [unjconquerable fortresses,
with many men and arms and exercises of war, subjugating
kingdoms in the heart of the Moorish dominions? Who can doubt
that your armadas are the largest in the world, as there are
always plenty for some to go to Arabia, others to the First India,
others to the Second and the Third, in such a way that no one
has power to navigate anywhere in your dominions without your
permission, and the Moors in the farthest corners are as much
intimidated as those in the centre? It is certainly a thing deserv-
ing of great glory that such great kings and lords as those of
these parts, that is the Sultan of Cairo, the king of Aden, the
king of Ormuz, the Sheikh Ismail {Xequesmaell) or Sophy — a
man famous throughout the world — the Nodhakis {Naitaques),
A I H.C.S. I.
2
TOM^ PIRES
Rajputs (Resputes), Cambay on this side [of India], India from
Malabar to the province of Choromandel, and Klings (Quelijs),
the kingdoms of Orissa (Orixa), of Bengal {Bengala), Arakan
(Racan), Pegu, Siam (Siaoo), Kedah {Queda), Malacca, Pahang
(Pahaoo), Trengganu {Talimganor), Patani, Trang {Terrdoo),
Odia, Cambodia, Cochin-China [Cauchi China), China with
all the islands, powerful peoples both on sea and on land — upon
all these Your Highness wages war, carrying your banners into
their lands in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of all these,
those that are vassals live peaceably and those that are rebels
live in fire and torment and are more occupied in protecting
themselves than in fighting with your armadas. All this is caused
by Your Highness’ great power here, which is exercised and
extended in war by the most magnificent and exalted knight
Afonso de Albuquerque, your Captain-General, who is brave,
astute and provident in war and most wise in the other human
arts, and who never ceases his labours, fighting continuously
now in High India, now in Arabia, and in the midst of it all he
never ceases fighting against the name of Mohammed {Mafa-
mede). It is clear that God’s omnipotence is favouring these
efforts because He wills to make Christianity take root throughout
your kingdoms, and that these things are accomplished by an
immense expenditure of money such as no Christian King has
ever made before, because they are never ceasing; yet it must all
be considered as money well spent because it is a thing which so
exalts, increases and augments our holy Catholic faith, bringing
such humiliation, loss and damage to the false diabolic opinion
of the abominable, ignominious, false Mohammed, the head of
all the vain Moorish religion, that Your Highness has gained
great fame and honour among princes in this world and infinite
merit before the Most High God, who has so magnificently
begun, carried on and almost finished these things.
First For which reasons — that happen fortunately — occupied as I am
foreword, with duties which brought me to India and with others entailing
a great deal of work that were allotted to me here, I wished that
I had some spare time in which I could write something true, so
that time could be profitably spent in reading it; and I decided
to undertake this Suma Oriental, and to begin with the Red or
PREFACE
3
Arabian Sea and go as far as China including all the islands and
to leave out the African part as that is better known. I am not
undertaking this account with bold presumption, because that
would not be modest, but I ask that where I may be found
lacking, it be excused, because my efforts were in good faith, for
I have seen such great things that, without offence to some
people who have written, their works needed to be corrected.
It seemed to me an honourable thing to put some part of all this
glory into writing, as if I were so bold as to have the mind of a
Greek, the tongue of a Roman and Betic vivacity | to speak of Fol.nyv.
such simple, and yet such fortunate things as these of the East;
but as I am a Lusitanian and a man of the people, whose custom
it is to belittle their glories and to make too much of the bad
things; and as the work of composing treatises or summaries is
more for foreigners than for natives, because they know how to
soften their compositions; for instance, we see them tell wonders
of the Mediterranean Sea, which is a fifteen days’ voyage, always
within sight of land; so what would they do if they saw the
famous eastern conquest of all the ocean, in the course of which
there were things as deserving of remembrance and honour
among men as they were accounted worthy before God. If this
account is not so impressive as it should be, put it down (.?) to
my being versed in another art, which I have learnt in the course
of time and in which I could give a better account of myself,
because necessity was there a stronger incentive to me than in
this book reason.
If I were as speedy as the troglodites and the people who Second
killed the Viceroys in going to see for myself, as I was diligent
in research into that which I did not see, it would not be sur-
prising if this brief account were more copious (instead of being
limited to the land measured along the sea coast). Anyone who
likes may laugh at me for going out of my province and out of
my proper sphere; but having seen how men speak about things
of which they know nothing, without being reproved, it seemed
to me that I was less at fault in speaking of these matters,
* D. Francisco de Almeida, first Viceroy of India. He was killed with sixty-
four other Portuguese, of whom twelve were captains, by the natives in Table
Bay, Cape of Good Hope, on i March 1510.
4
TOME FIRES
because the things I want to speak of are for Your Highness’
service and I am your subject and I have a reason for writing if
I get the help that is befitting. If I cannot speak with fitting
distinction, then the fault is mine, because I have no knowledge
of my own. And in this Suma I shall speak not only of the
division of the parts, provinces, kingdoms and regions and their
boundaries, but also of the dealings and trade that they have
with one another, which trading in merchandise is so necessary
that without it the world could not go on. It is this that en-
nobles kingdoms and makes their people great, that ennobles
cities, that brings war and peace. In this world it is customary
for merchandise to be clean — I do not speak of the dealings in it,
which are held in esteem — for what can be better than that
which is based on truth. Pope Paul II was originally a merchant
and he was not ashamed of the time he spent in trade, and the
scholars of Athens used to praise trade as a wonderful thing, and
nowadays it is carried on throughout the world, and particu-
larly in these parts it is held in such high esteem that the great
lords here do not do anything else but trade. It is pleasant,
necessary and convenient, although it brings reverses, which
make it more esteemed.
Third I begin in accordance with the everyday procedure in every
foreword, ^ork, things being first marked out and then cut. The
cmj:erning Suma will be divided up by the lines of the five principal
arrange- rivers in this part of Asia: the Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates,
ment [of Indus and the Ganges.
Suma]. divides Africa from Asia and Persia of the Arabians
as far as the Tigris; from the Tigris to the Euphrates is the pro-
vince of the Nodhakis Persians; from the Euphrates to the Indus
Fol.iiSr. are the Rajputs | and Cambay on this side of Goa; from the
Indus to the Ganges is Malabar with India and the province of
the Klings which contains the kingdom of Orissa. The Ganges
has two mouths, one in Cambodia and the other in Bengal,
which contains many kingdoms as we shall see later, and from
Cambodia to China the rising of each river will be dealt with.
And the present Suma will be divided into five books: the first
will treat of Arabia, Egypt and Persia as far as Cambay; the
second will be from Cambay to Bhatkal (Baticalla); the third
PREFACE
5
will be from Bhatkal to Bengal; the fourth will be from Bengal
to China; the fifth will be all the islands and that will be the end
of the Suma.
It seemed to me convenient in this work to follow the same Division
mechanical way as any craftsman uses in his work, to mark out ,
and then cut it. The Suma Oriental is divided into four parts or Suma.
books'; the first will deal with the beginning of Asia, starting
from Africa to the First India; the second will be from the First
India to the end of Middle India^; the third will be the High
India on the other side of the Ganges, ending at Ayuthia {Odia)\
the fourth will be about the kingdom of China and all the pro-
vinces subject to it, with the noble island of Liu Kiu (Lequeos),
Japan (Janpon), Borneo, the Lufoes and the Macassars {Maca-
ceres)\ the fifth will be about all the islands in detail. And I will
divide Asia according to the principal rivers, giving the begin-
ning and the end of each, and if there appears to be anything
added or left out in this division, thus differing from the cosmo-
graphy of Friar Anselm^ and Ptolemy and others, it must not
be looked upon as an invention, because their knowledge was
based on second-hand information rather than experience, and
we here have been through everything, and experienced it and
seen it. And if this reason be not acceptable it must be remem-
bered that a tailor often makes mistakes in cutting in a small
area, so it is very much more difficult over such a great distance.
I will not try to excuse myself for any carelessness in not speak-
' ‘Four’ is an obvious mistake for five. There is throughout great confusion
in the division of the Suma, and the three plans proposed by Pires do not
coincide. Moreover he added, out of place, new matter which does not fit
properly in any of the five books. To complicate matters still further, the
transcriber does not seem to have followed the order in which Pires wrote,
and when the MS was bound some folios were misplaced. I have rearranged
the English text, as explained in the Introduction, p. Ixxii.
2 Farther on (p. 65) Pires identifies Second India with Middle India.
3 Fradanselltno or ‘Frade Anselmo’, i.e. Friar Anselm, a Franciscan friar
who visited the Holy Land in 1507-8, and in 1509 published a pamphlet —
Descriptio Terr<x Sanctce. It is included in Joannes de Stobnicza — Introductio
inPtolomeicosmographiam, etc., ff 33-44, Cracoviae, and inHenricus Canisius —
Thesaurus Monumentorum, etc., Tom. iv, pp. 776-794. Antuerpiae, 1725. Friar
Anselm’s nationality is unknown, but possibly he was a Pole. Pires may have
known of, or had a copy of, the 1509 pamphlet, but it seems that he used it
in this citation only.
6
TOME FIRES
ing as clearly as I should, because most of my time was taken up
with my duties in connexion with Your Highness’ revenue, and
the time I devoted to the present work was my leisure, as may
be seen from the register of the accounts I kept in Malacca and
of my duties in the factory there, all at the command of the
Captain-General, who ordered it in Your Highness’ service^; of
which I made lengthier reports.
* It should be made clear that the duties performed at the command of the
Captain-General were his official tasks, and not the work of his leisure.
Fol. ii8v.
SUMA ORIENTAL
WHICH GOES FROM THE RED SEA
TO CHINA
Compiled by TOME FIRES
FIRST BOOK
[EGYPT TO CAMBAY]
[Egypt to Ormuz — Ormuz — Persia —
Nodhakis — Rajputs — Cambay]
[EGYPT TO ORMUZ]
JK SIA is separated from Africa on the Mediterranean side Division
by Alexandria, and on the eastern side by the River Nile
A. ^and from ocean by the south, according to this division, Africa.
it is separated from the Abyssinian Ethiopia by it and Arabia
FelixL
The Nile, the first and most important river, rises near the Birth of
Cape of Good Hope and flows through Abyssinia in small the Nile,
streams; at the end of Abyssinia, near Arabia Felix, it becomes
navigable; it takes an easy course to Egypt and flows into the
Mediterranean Sea through several mouths, the chief of which
is Damietta (Damjata), which passes within about half a league
of the city of Cairo, In July and August it is in flood and waters
the land, and the people who live on the banks of the river take
their flocks and belongings and go up to the hills; and when the
water goes down and begins to dry, they sow, from September
onwards. The people of Egypt say that this miracle proceeds
from the Abyssinians, a Christian people, and for this reason the
Abyssinians can go freely and untaxed throughout the Sultan’s
* This confused sentence is written exactly the same in the Lisbon MS
but it was rearranged in Ramusio’s translation.
7
8
TOME FIRES
land, and are held in esteem. The river flows violently and from
Abyssinia it is not good to navigate in that direction,
Abyssinia. Abyssinia is bounded on the Red Sea side by Arabia Felix;
on the African side by the deserts and by part of Ethiopia; on
the ocean side from Guardafui to Sofala it is sixty leagues away
from the sea. They are Christians. They have much land and
they have both warriors and merchants. They have foodstuffs in
their land and gold. They have no seaports and come to trade in
Zeila and Berbera and in the Arabian ports along the strait.
These people are renowned among the Ethiopians. They all
have woolly hair, and instead of being baptized they are branded
on the forehead. They have priests, patriarchs and other monks.
They go on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Mount Sinai every
year. They are considered in these parts to be loyal, true and
faithful knights, and often from being slaves they rise to be
kings, chiefly in Bengal.
People come from Aden, from Sheher {Xariy, from Fartak,
from Dahlak and Suakin to trade with these Abyssinians. The
things most prized in Abyssinia are rosewater, dried roses, glass
beads, coarse cloth from Cambay and some silks, all kinds of
beads, crystal, white cloths, bales of dates, opium.
Abyssinian merchandise — gold, ivory, horses, slaves, food-
stuffs, etc.
Fol. iigr. It is convenient that we should continue our account from
here to China, In the Asiatic part along the side of the sea every-
thing is measured and described. This sea has three names: Red
Sea, Arabian Sea and Strait of Mecca — Red Sea because of the
red barriers which are at the end near Suez, Arabian Sea because
it is surrounded by the Arabs, and Strait of Mecca because
Mecca, a place of pilgrimage for the Moors, whose Mohammed
was born there, is within it; but the proper name is the Arabian
Sea,
Size of From the entrance to this strait up to Suez this sea is bordered
this sea. |3y four provinces: on the eastern side lies Arabia Petrea, on the
Abyssinian side Arabia Felix. This reaches as far as the Dahlak
islands, and Arabia Petrea extends almost to Mecca. Arabia
' Xari, more often called Xaer or Xael by the sixteenth-century Portu-
guese. The present town of Sheher or Esh-Shihr on the coast of Hadhramaut.
EGYPT TO ORMUZ
9
Deserta begins at Mecca and extends to Tor and goes along
towards the Mediterranean Sea and divides the province of
Egypt from the land of Judea. From Tor and Dahlak is the
province of Egypt, that is, it occupies the point or almost the
third part of the strait surrounding it.
The strait is entirely surrounded by the above-mentioned
lands which are almost all desert and uninhabited and bare with-
out fruit anywhere. There are some islands in the strait with a
few inhabitants, like Kamaran, Dahlak, and Suakin, which are
there. In this strait there are many rocky banks and they are
difficult to navigate. Men do not navigate except by day; they
can always anchor. The best sailing is from the entrance to the
strait as far as Kamaran. It is worse from Kamaran to Jidda and
much worse from Jidda to Tor. From Tor to Suez is a route for
small boats [only] even by day, because it is all dirty and bad.
This strait has hot winds, so that anything that die, either man
or beast, is not allowed to putrefy, but is dried, and from these
animals mummy is brought from there to our part of the world.
This is not really the mummy, it is the moisture which flows from
the dead bodies, after they have been embalmed with Socotrine
aloes^ and myrrh, so that the liquid which flows from our bodies
and from these substances is called mummy^.
The land of Egypt begins at the Mediterranean Sea and in- FoI. iigv.
eludes part of the strait of Mecca. It is bounded on one side by
■1 D *
Africa and on the other by Arabia Deserta of Judea. It is all land
that is sown at the flooding of the Nile and this sowing is done
more between Cairo and our Mediterranean Sea, because be-
tween Cairo and the strait it is uncultivated land, but is easier
to travel over than the desert. In this province is the city of
Thebes where Theban opium is made, which is known here as
afiam, a thing which is much used here for eating, and in our
* Watt says that ‘Indian aloes seem first to have been mentioned by Garcia
da Orta (1563, Coll. Il) as prepared particularly in Cambay and Bengal’. The
Commercial Products of India, p. 59. Though, when dealing with the Cambay
trade, Pires does not mention aloes among the products exported or imported,
he refers to the aloes of Cambay in his letter of 27 Jan. 1516 (Appendix I).
2 In the same letter of 27 Jan. 1516, Pires refers at length to this disgusting
stuff, which was formerly supposed to have magical and medicinal
properties; but he was cautious enough to state his disbelief.
10
TOMIE PIRlib
country it kills. In this country of Egypt it does not rain except
for a day or less once a year or once in two years. And the rain
which falls is warm, and is of no use. In order to make use of the
land, when the Nile is in flood they dam the water, so that they
can afterwards water the gardens. All this province is lacking
in water.
Where the The chief city of all this land is Cairo. The Sultan is always
Sultan is. there. He has many slaves to guard him, Mamelukes, which in
the language of the country means people bought with money.
There must be as many as five thousand of these and they guard
his person. Most of them are renegades who were Christians. He
has a large number of wives. He never goes out, nor is he ever
seen by the people of the city. He has ministers of Justice — who
rarely administer it. When they are annoyed with the Sultan
these Mamelukes choose someone else and kill the other. He
must be a renegade and they say that this is done because the
Christians apostatize in order to attain this dignity — which may
be true. Neither son nor relative inherits, but successors are
chosen in the said way. He must be a renegade Christian and the
more times he has been sold the greater his consequence in the
kingdom. The Sultans of Cairo are very poor and even more so
now. Those of this kingdom are called Magarijs^ in these parts.
In all his province he has no king, only captains. The Moorish
Sophy of Persia, who is known as Sheikh Ismail here, is at war
with him, as we shall see later in the description of Ormuz, and
he is losing part of it; but as their sons do not succeed, they do
not work for the liberty of their country.
He has dominion over Judea and some part of Syria, the prin-
cipal city of which is Damascus, as well as over Chaldea, Pales-
tine and Aydumea^. He is not very well obeyed in any of these
parts. The greatest revenue he had, on which he maintained
himself, was from the pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre and the
duties on spice passing through Cairo. He is now already getting
very little from the spices, and please God that he will get still
• From the kingdom of Mafaram, probably Mekran according to Dan-
vers, The Portuguese in India, i, 314.
2 Perhaps Aidin, a petty Turkish sultanate near Smyrna in the fifteenth
century. Today it is a vilayet.
EGYPT TO ORMUZ
II
less from the Holy Sepulchre. The other neighbouring regions
are every day joining the Sheikh Ismail against him.
The city of Jidda is on a river, half a league from the sea. It is City of
almost as large a city as Aden but not so strong. It has not such
walls and is said to be a weak thing. It must have about five thou-
sand inhabitants and it belongs to the Sultan of Cairo. [ Every Pol. izor.
year one of the Sultan’s slaves is made captain with revenues. The
city has no natural products or fruits except dates. Much meat,
fish, wheat, rice, barley and millet are brought from Zeila and
Berbera and from the islands of Suakin. It has many merchants
and is a great trading city. Ships anchor half a league away and
that half league to the city is a fathom deep at low tide and three
fathoms at high tide. There are men for the garrison, horsemen.
The port has water in abundance. All the merchandise of India
is unloaded at Jidda. It is about ten days’ journey from Aden.
A day’s journey on land from Jidda is Mecca where Moham- The
med was born and his descendants. The house of Mecca is large °f
]\^&CCCL
and well built. It has about a thousand people, many of them
merchants. The Captain of the city is called Xecbarqate^. He is
one of the Sultan of Cairo’s men. This place has no water. It
comes in a cart from a place called Arafat (Arefet) a league from
Mecca^. The foodstuffs come from Jidda.
Medina is four leagues journey from Mecca, on the road to Medina
Cairo, some way into the desert of Arabia Deserta. It has about
a hundred inhabitants. Mohammed with his daughter, son-in-
law and companions, lies in a tower in this place. It is a great
place of pilgrimage. It has good dates and little water. It is forty
days’ journey from Cairo to Medina, four from Medina to
Mecca, one from Mecca to Jidda and ten from Jidda to Aden
with [a favourable] wind.
Suez is three days’ journey from Cairo. It is the end of the Where the
straits and is not a port, nor is it an inhabited place. They say
that an armada is being prepared there against us. There are no
* Barakat II, who was sherif of Mecca from 1497 to 1525, being a vassal of
the Egyptian Sultan.
* There is a place called Kahwat Arafat, with a spring conspicuously
marked, on the i : 253,440 War Office map of S.W. Arabia, some 30 miles
(9 leagues) due east of Mecca. This spring still supplies Mecca by means of a
covered water conduit.
made.
12
TOM^; FIRES
fortresses nor inhabited places along this three days’ journey,
only the sea, which is full of rocks and shallows. The wood, at
least, that they need has to come from outside his kingdoms,
because in all his land and all round the straits there is nothing
but sea rushes which grow on beautiful rocks.
The people of this province are warlike. They have many
caparisoned horses and they have guns. They are dextrous with
the lance on horseback, holding the bridle in one hand, and they
wear spurs like the Arabian warriors. They have camels with
two humps. These people have many mercenaries who fight so
that the others may live by their efforts, and some of them go
about pillaging the country. There is little justice because of the
fighting people, for they do not live in harmony together.
Christians In this province and also among the Arabs there are many
Christians — some of them circumcized and some of them not.
The circumcized are called Jacobites and the others Melchites.
They have two Lents, one at Christmas and the other the same
as ours. They do not marry one another [i.e. Jacobites do not
marry Melchites] and many of them are hermits and men of holy
life, and some of them are men of property and they are numer-
ous. They are found in Jidda, in Tor and in Mecca. They are
considered by these people to be good men.
Fol 1 20V. The merchandise which these people take to India comes
from Venice in Italy. It comes to Alexandria, and from the
trade in Alexandria warehouses it comes by river to the factors in Cairo,
India. and from Cairo it comes in caravans with many armed people.
It comes to Tor, but this is not often, because on account of the
nomad robbers they need many armed people to guard the
merchandise. But at the time of the Jubilee {JubileuY, which is
* Cimtura or cintura — Besides meaning waist, cintura, scintura or escintura
(from the Portuguese verb cindir, scindir or escindir, in Latin scindere)
formerly also signified a cut or a slash. Thus in this case it may mean
‘circumcision’.
2 This is certainly not the jubilee-year at the beginning of which the
liberation of all Israelitish slaves and the restoration of ancestral possessions
took place. Pires means perhaps the Islamic Haggi, or great pilgrimage to
Mecca which is fixed for certain days in the first half of the month Dulheggia.
But as the Hejira has not a corresponding fixed date in the Gregorian calendar,
for it depends on the lunar months beginning with the approximate new
moon, the Haggi runs in time through the whole year. 1481 was the nearest
EGYPT TO ORMUZ
13
held every year in Mecca on the first day of February, when
many people come, [the merchandise] is sent to Mecca with
them. And from there it comes to Jidda and from Jidda it comes
to the warehouses they have in Aden and from Aden it is distri-
buted to Cambay, Goa, Malabar, Bengal, Pegu and Siam.
They take different kinds of coloured woollen cloths, hats, Merchan-
glass of all kinds and colours, azernefe^^ vermilion, quicksilver,
copper, steel, arms, silver, gold coinage, opium, mastic, all sorts
of glass beads, liquid storax^, rosewater, camlet {chamalotes) of
many colours, both fine and other kinds, many fine and costly
tapestries and carpets of good workmanship, both large and
small, many mirrors.
Arabia Felix lies between (?) the Red Sea and Abyssinia. Arabia
Some say that it reaches Mogadishu (Magadoxoo) and goes as Felix.
far as the Dahlak islands, and they say that it is all a land of white
people where there is none of the woolly hair which is proper to
this Arabia. Others say that it only goes as far as Cape Guarda-
fui; it is called Felix because it is not so barren as the [other] two,
if it extends as far as Mogadishu; its ports are already known, if
year in which the beginning of the Hejira fell on the 1st February; in 1513 it
fell on the 7th February, and in 1514 on the 28th January. It may be
that the pronunciation of the word Dulheggia sounded to Fires like Jubileu
(‘Joobeelio’).
* All this portion is missing in the Lisbon MS. The word azernefe is
repeated further on under the heading ‘Merchandise from Malacca for
Siam’, but it was left out in the Lisbon MS, as if the transcriber did not
understand or did not know the word. Ramusio translated it in both places as
orpimeto, which means orpiment, yellow arsenic or trisulphide of arsenic. The
word azernefe is not found in Portuguese dictionaries, but in a letter to Afonso
de Albuquerque, written from Malacca in 1510 by Portuguese captives, azer-
nefe is mentioned as one of the commodities which it would be profitable to
bring there. Cartas, III, 12. Watt says that orpiment is a product of India and
that it has also always been imported from Burma and China, which agrees
with Pires’ statement. It seems as though the word azernefe (perhaps a simple
corruption of the word arsenico), meaning orpiment, had vanished from the
Portuguese language, as did the word fruseldra, also used by Pires, as will
be seen later, note pp. 96-7.
^ Liquid Storax, taken by the Arabs to India, is the fragrant balsam yielded
by Liquidambar orientalis Mill., of Asia Minor. It is a different product from
the ‘true storax’, styrax benzoin or gum benjamin of commerce, yielded by
the benzoin tree, Styrax benzoin Dryand., of the Malay Peninsula and
Archipelago. In the letter of 1516 (Appendix I) Pires refers at length to
liquid storax, which, in his opinion, did not exist.
TOM^ PIRES
Arabia
Petrea.
H
it extends from the cape to Dahlak; then before you sail through
the mouth of the strait it has Zeila and Berbera, and when you
are in the straits it has Dahlak and El Qoseir {Lafari). From this
El Qoseir, which is a port with few inhabitants, they can get to
the Nile in three days and in ten you can embark at Cairo; but
this not often, as the nomads waylay travellers on this road.
The people of this Arabia are clean and noble. They have
fortresses and horsemen. They are at war with Abyssinia, which
borders on this Arabia, and they make raids on horseback, in the
course of which they capture large numbers of Abyssinians
whom they sell to the people of Asia. This land has wheat and
good water. People come to trade in these ports from many
places, from Cambay, from the whole of Arabia, but chiefly
from the city of Aden. They bring coarse cloths of many kinds,
glass beads, and other beads from Cambay; from Aden they
bring raisins, from Ormuz dates, and they take back gold, ivory
and slaves and trade with them in the said ports of Zeila and
Berbera. They trade with other places too. Goods are brought
from Kilwa, Malindi, Brava, Mogadishu and Mombassa in ex-
change for the good horses in this Arabia. They have no cities and
no king. They live in bands {cahilasy. They are a plundering
people and very wild. These two ports are an outlet for the whole
of Abyssinia, because very little goes to Cairo.
Arabia Petrea is divided from Persia by the Strait of Ormuz,
and from the river that goes to Mecca^ it is divided from Arabia
Deserta by the port of Jidda and along the land it is a populous
region and forms part of Palestine^. It was called Arabia Petrea
because it is bare, sterile and mountainous, all stony and having
little water. This province has some cities along the sea coast.
It has Jidda, Aden, Fartak {Fartaque), the Masirah or Mosera
{a Maseira) of the cape of Ras el Hadd (Roscallhate), and farther
• Cabildas in the Lisbon MS. Both forms come from the Arabic ^bd’il,
plur. kabila, ‘tribe’, which some Arab writers use as a synonym of Berbers
and which were formerly used by the Portuguese to designate Moorish tribes
in North Africa. Then they were by extension applied in the East to any band
of Moors, either belonging to one or more families or simply living together.
2 Wadi Fatima.
3 Pires mixes up Arabia Petrea with Arabia Deserta. These names are
properly placed on the large map in the pocket at the end of this volume.
EGYPT TO ORMUZ
15
up along the shores of the Strait of Ormuz it has Kalhat {Cala-
hate)y Muscat {Mascate), Quryat {Curiate) and other places.
Going inland over the mountains, it has good cities with many
inhabitants and beautiful land with many people living in it. Of
all these cities and places | Aden is the noblest, and a very strong Fol. i2ir.
place. The inland cities are called Zabid {Zebit), Taizz {Taees),
Beit el Fakih {Beitall Faquj), Camaran^, Sana {Cana), QinanF.
The people of this Arabia are warlike. They fight on horseback
in the same way as we do, with spurs, and holding the reins in
one hand and a lance in the other, and they have a great number
of men. The horses in this Arabia are better than all the others
in any of these parts. They have a large number of camels and
oxen which they use, and other animals. They are hunters, very
hard-working men, haughty and presumptuous. This province
has a king who is obeyed by all and who is said to be a vassal
of the Sultan [of Egypt]. This [king] is always inland as there
is always war in his country, because many [of his people] are
nomads and the land is rocky, and they will not live in peace and
they have no alternative but to steal.
And because Aden is the only populous town in this Arabia,
and is the key not only of Arabia but of all the strait, both for
those entering and for those leaving, I would say that the rest is
all subordinated either to Aden or to Ormuz, and some live
independently. Jidda and Mecca and the hinterland aic under
the Sultan’s rule. Aden is the key to the seaports, not to mention
the mountains on the mainland (?).
Aden lies at the foot of a mountain, almost flat on the plain, a \.^deri\
little town, but very strong, both in walls, towers and ramparts,
as well as in all the paraphernalia of gun towers, loopholes, much
ordnance and many warriors — for there are always many people
of the country paid to fight, apart from the fact that at any alarm
a large number [of the people] from inland rush to help. Inside
the city there is a beautiful fortress, with a captain in it always
prepared as he should be, because for the last ten years they
* This Camaram cannot be the Island of Kamaran, because Fires is refer-
ring to ‘inland cities’. It may have been miscopied, and may stand for the two
places Khramr and Amram, north of Sana, or for the city of Al-Makrana,
which Varthema called Almacarana.
2 Qinam may correspond to Jizam, which Varthema called Gezan.
i6
TOME FIRES
With
whom
they
trade.
have always been afraid of our armadas, and all the Moors help
this city so that it shall not be taken. They fear that if it were
taken the end would soon come, because it is all they have left.
And this city has already had a great battle, and would have been
stormed if the ladders had not disastrously broken with the
weight of the people scaling the walls ^ And the battle was a
famous thing because [to capture] such towns the camp has to
be taken first, and this town was all but lost by the Moors. This
was a famous exploit, although the city was not taken; and it was
not very happy afterwards, and its Kashises^ feel that its destruc-
tion will soon come.
This town has a great trade with the people of Cairo as well as
with those of all India, and the people of India trade with it.
There are many important merchants in the city with great
riches, and many from other countries live there also. This city
is a meeting place for merchants. It is one of the four great trad-
ing cities in the world, and it has dealings inside the straits with
Jidda, to which it trades most of the spices and drugs in ex-
change for the said (merchandise?). It trades cloth to Dahlak
and receives seed pearls in exchange; it trades coarse cloths and
various trifling things to Zeila and Berbera in exchange for gold,
horses, slaves and ivory; it trades with Sokotra, sending cloth,
straw of Mecca, Socotrine aloes, and dragon’s-blood; it trades
with Ormuz, whence it brings horses; and out of the goods from
Cairo it trades gold, foodstuffs, wheat, and rice if there is any,
spices, seed pearls, musk, silk and any other drugs; it trades with
Cambay, taking there the merchandise from Cairo and opium,
and returning large quantities of cloth, with which it trades in
Arabia and the Islands, and seeds, glass beads^ beads from
Cambay, many carnelians of all colours, and chiefly spices and
drugs from Malacca, cloves, nutmeg, mace, sandalwood,
cubeb, seed pearls and things of that sort.
* Assault of Afonso de Albuquerque on Aden, in March 1513.
2 Caciz or Kashis among Arabs and Persians means a Christian priest.
However, Pires, as well as other sixteenth-century Portuguese writers, used the
word to designate any priest, especially a Muslim.
3 Matamingos, or Matamugos as in the Lisbon MS. An ancient word meaning
glass beads. The lexicographer Antdnio de Moraes e Silva records the two
forms. Diccionario da Lingua Portuguesa, isted. 1789.
PLATE XI
PLATE XII
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 27) of the North-east Coast of Africa, part
of the Red Sea and of Arabia (p. 520) ’ ^
EGYPT TO ORMUZ
17
It takes a great quantity of madder and raisins to Cambay, and Fol. isiv.
also to Ormuz; it trades with the kingdom of Goa, and takes
there all sorts of merchandise and horses both from [Aden]
itself and from Cairo, and receives in return rice, iron, sugar,
beatilhas^ and quantities of gold; it trades with Malabar in India,
where the main market was Calicut, whence it took pepper and
ginger; and it traded merchandise from Malacca with Bengal in
return for many kinds of white cloths, and it traded the merchan-
dise from Malacca also with Pegu in exchange for lac, benzoin,
musk and precious stones, rice also from Bengal, rice from Siam,
and merchandise from China which comes through Ayuthia.
And in this way it has become great, prosperous and rich, and
the king receives all his revenues from Aden alone, for all the
rest is nothing. There is no doubt that the madder alone brings
the king 100,000 cruzados.
The merchandise of Aden consists of horses, madder, rose- The mer-
water, dried roses, raisins, opium, and, with the goods coming chandtse
from Cairo, these make up a large amount ( ?). People come to the
port of Aden from all the above-mentioned places, and they [the
merchants of Aden] go everywhere. It is a thing worth seeing,
famous and rich, although its drinking water has to be brought
in a cart. All the merchandise is gathered there and they keep as
much of it as is necessary for the town’s trade and for con-
sumption there. The merchants there keep the spices by them,
and send them to Cairo in this way: they go from Aden to
Kamaran, from Kamaran to Dahlak, from Dahlak to the islands
of Suakin, whence they can go all along the straits of this
Suakin, to a port called El Qoseir on the Arabia Felix side, and
from there it is three days’ journey to the Nile and ten days to
Cairo; only they do not go this way because of the thieves, but
after they have reached the Island of Suakin^ they go to Jidda,
sailing by day, and many are lost because the straits are stormy
on account of the land winds; and those who are going to Jidda
* Beatilha is an old Portuguese word for fine muslin, or a sort of very thin
cloth made of cotton or linen.
2 Pires refers indiscriminately to ‘islands’ or ‘island’ of Suakin, perhaps
according to the source of his information. Though the town of Suakin
occupied the main island, ‘there lie in this bay three other islands’ as D. Joao
de Castro had already written in his Roteiro do Mar Roxo, p. 99.
B
H.C.S. I.
Suez,
Tor,
Jidda.
l8 TOME FIRES
unload, when they reach Jidda. At the time of the Jubilee, great
caravans come to Mecca, and the merchants join them, since
they satisfy the leaders. It is a seventy days’ journey to Cairo,
and sometimes they go from Jidda to Tor by sea; but not often
because it is not a main road to Cairo and they are always robbed.
The king of Aden always lives in the City of Sana, which is
inland, where he has seven or eight large cities with many in-
habitants, and most of the Arabs there are Rafadish followers of
the Law [of Mohammed], and the king dare not kill them for
fear of the Sheikh Ismail, king of Persia and follower of Ali.
There is much rosewater in this land of Sana, and dried roses,
which are much prized in Abyssinia, and in this city there are
finer carnelians than those from Cambay, and there are not so
many of them.
Travellers who want to go from Aden to Cairo go to Jidda,
and from Jidda to Tor and from Tor to Suez, and they get to
Cairo in three days — or rather in five days — if the horse goes
well, for it is desert.
I shall not talk about Tor or about Suez, because they are not
ports nor towns. Suez has been talked of for the last three or
four years, because they say that it is a place where an armada is
being made. There are no houses there nor within a radius of
twenty leagues of it. It is an exposed and solitary place, with
bare ground and no grass. It is not possible to go from Suez to
Tor except by day and in small light craft, as the water is all
shallow and full of rocks. Tor has not more than twenty houses.
These belong to Christians of the type I have described above.
The inhabited places are very much in the midst of the nomad
robbers. The road from Tor to Jidda is almost as wretched as the
other. The whole of that land is accursed and there is no profit
in it. Jidda is the port of Mecca, small and shallow. In the whole
of the straits there is no other place but Jidda. It is on bare
ground. They say now that it is being fortified as the people are
afraid. It has a garrison. The way from Jidda to Aden is
dangerous, but not so much so.
' Rafadi, Rafazi or Rafizi means heretic. It is the name that the Moham-
medan Sunnis (orthodox and traditionists) contemptuously give to the Shi’ites
(separatists), a rival sect which considers Ali and his descendants as the
legitimate successors to the Caliphate.
ORMUZ
19
After Aden comes Fartak, the islands of Kuria Muria and
Masirah. The people here are all nomads, merchants and good
warriors. Many go from Fartak to Sokotra, Zeila and Berbera as
garrison captains. These people also live by trade, but it is not
much. From Cape Ras el Hadd {Roshallhate) inland the land is
under the dominion of Ormuz. The people of Fartak have beauti-
ful swords and all other kind of arms. They are daring men.
This land of Arabia Deserta in the straits of Mecca begins at
Jidda and extends as far as Tor and goes to the Mediterranean Fol. i22r.
Sea and divides the land of Egypt from Judea. Some affirm that Arabia
Mecca is in this country and not in Arabia Petrea. There is Deserta.
nothing to be said about this country. It has nomad robbers. It
has no trees nor fruit, nor is there water except in a few places
known to the nomads. They are robbers and have no other mode
of life. They are beyond reason, malicious and go about in
bands (cabilas) seizing whatever they can find.
ORMUZ
Next in order the civilized island of Ormuz is represented for
us with all its kingdom and with the many islands in the straits
there. This kingdom, besides being rich and noble, is the key to
Persia. It borders on Arabia Petrea on the [word missingy side,
where it has cities under its sway, and on the Cambay side [it is
bounded by] the Nodhakis, and on the mainland [it is bounded
by] the great Persian province. The islands of Bahrein belong to
the kingdom of Ormuz, and also all those in the Strait of Ormuz,
and also the Moorish king with the red cap, who is a follower of
the sect of Ali, newly converted. The people of Ormuz are war-
like and have good arms and horses; they are civilized and
domestic men. This kingdom stretches from Cape Ras el Hadd
inwards along the straits. It has many people with houses of
good workmanship.
The city of Ormuz is in an island which is almost joined on to
Persia, about a league away. It has walls, houses with terraces,
towers, and ramparts in it. It is very cool, and is one of the four
‘ In this case, as in many others, the transcriber of the Lisbon MS simply
omitted the obscure passage.
20
TOM^ PIRES
[great cities] on this side of Asia, with all the elegance of beauti-
ful white women. Its neighbours have no advantage over it in
trade. If things to eat are in question neither the Flemings nor
the French come up to its citizens; and it has fruits like ours in
abundance. The city has people in it from many parts, big mer-
chants. Only this island lacks water; the city contains many cis-
terns and wells, but now the water that is constantly drunk comes
in jars from the mainland in almadias, and is sometimes dear,
according to the weather. If however the water from the main-
land is not forthcoming, there is water in the city — neither very
good nor for so many people. It has islands near it which also have
beautiful water. This city was founded on account of the port.
Ships from outside are constantly coming there with mer-
chandise and Ormuz trades with them all. Wherefore the king of
Ormuz is immensely rich from the Ormuz dues. Ormuz is
ancient both in arms and in trade, and is held in esteem in these
parts. Its trade is very necessary in these parts, and it is a very
populous, rich and honoured city.
The Between Arabia Petrea and the land of Persia there is an arm
Straits of gf the sea with some beautiful towns on either shore, and this is
■ called the Strait of Ormuz. It is not all navigable and for the
most part any one who is in the middle can [only] see the land
on one side and towards the end [he can see] both. It is navi-
gable farther in. Four or five days’ sail with favourable wind
from Ormuz there are many islands, the chief of which are called
Bahrein, where there is the best pearl fishing in these parts, and
these pearls are an important item in the trade of Ormuz, and
they are plentiful, and they are generally whiter and rounder than
those from anywhere else.
The trade Ormuz trades with Aden and Cambay and with the kingdom
of Ormuz. Deccan and Goa and with the ports of the kingdom of
Narsinga and in Malabar. The chief things the Ormuz merchants
takeWe Arabian and Persian horses, seed pearls, saltpetre, sulphur,
silk, tutty, alum — which is called alexandrina in our part of the
world — copperas, vitriol, quantities of salt, white silk, many
tangas — which are silver coins worth about ( ?) sixty-five reis — ^
* ‘The Goa tanga was worth 6o reis, that of Ormus 62ft to 69ft reis’,
which agrees with Pires. Hobson- Jobson, s.v. See note p. 142.
PERSIA
21
and musk, sometimes amber, and a great deal of dried fruit,
wheat, barley and foodstuffs of that kind.
They bring back pepper, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and all
sorts of other spices and drugs, which are greatly in demand in
the land of Persia and Arabia, and some of which go to Aden
when there is a great deal; but as they are already costly at
Ormuz I do not think much goes from there to Cairo for
despatch to Italy. They also bring back as much rice as they can,
[also] heatilhay white cloth, and iron, although their great idea is
to bring back pepper, rice and gold with them. Horses are worth
a high price in the kingdoms of Goa, of the Deccan and of
Narsinga, | so the Ormuz [merchants] go to these kingdoms FoI. i22v.
with them every year. A horse may be worth as much as seven
hundred xerafins — coins worth 320 reis each^ — ^when it is good.
The best are the Arabians, next are the Persians and third are
those from Cambay. These latter are worth little, as we shall see
later.
PERSIA
Because Ormuz lies near Persia and because Persia is the
mainland from which our account starts, it did not seem to me
right to leave that country undescribed ; and if I give myself
rein in speaking of Persia, it deserves it if only because it is
opposed to Mohammed.
The great province of Persia has only the kingdom of Ormuz
on the ocean side. Its boundary on the Cambay side is formed by
the Nodhakis; on the side of Arabia, by the Strait of Ormuz;
inland by the mountain ranges of Delhi (Delj); and on the side of
Armenia [it goes] nearly to Babylon; and through Media it comes
to India^. This province is divided into more than forty king-
doms and regions of this land, some of it inhabited and very
good, and some of it is mountainous and uninhabited. In their
I According to Nunes (Lyvro dos Pesos da Ymdia, p. 32), in 1554, the Xera-
fin of Aden was worth 360 reis, that of Ormuz 300 reis. Each xerafin was
worth five silver tangas. Further on, when dealing with the Malacca coinage.
Fires refers to 'xarafins from Cambay and from Ormuz’, which were worth
three cruzados (p. 275)..
* Although it is written Ydamca in the Paris MS, it should read ‘India’,
as in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio’s translation.
22
TOM^ FIRES
language the whole of this province taken thus together is called
Agenby and we in our language call it Persia. All the people of
Agenb^ are called Parsees {parses), which we call persas or per-
syanos — Persians.
Provinces The best provinces or kingdoms of this Persia are four:
^^IWsia {Corafoni), Guilan {Guilani), Tabriz {Taurini) and
Shiraz {Xitagy)\ and in these four provinces there are four chief
cities: Tabriz {Tauris), Shiraz {Xiras), Samarkand {Qamar-
cante) and Khorasan. The people called Rumes^ are in the Khora-
san region, and those of Guilan are Turkomans, warlike men
and fighters who are highly esteemed in these parts, and who are
said to be of Christian birth. The people of Tabriz and Shiraz
are like [those of] Paris in France; they are domestic, handsome
men and courtiers, but above all the women of Shiraz are
praised for their beauty, their fairness of skin, their discretion
and the neatness of their dress; so that the Moors say that
Mohammed would never go to the province of Shiraz lest he
should like it so much that he would never go to Paradise when
he died. To these four is also added the province of Media,
which they call Mjdonj^ here, which also has a principal city
* Agent corresponds to Al-’Adjam, an Arabic expression, referring to the
whole of the people of Persia. Agent appears as agem in the Lisbon MS, and
as Azemini in Ramusio.
^ Barros (iv, iv, i6) writes that ‘the Moors of India, not understanding the
divisions of the Provinces of Europe, called the whole of Thrace, Greece,
Sclavonia, and the adjacent islands of the Mediterranean, Rum, and the men
thereof Rumi, a name which properly belonged to that part of Thrace in
which lies Constantinople; from the name of New Rome belonging to the
latter, Thrace took that of Romania. And thus Rumes and Turks were different
nations; because the latter had their origin in the Province of Turkistan, and
the Rumes in Greece and Thrace, in view of which they considered them-
selves more important than the Turks’. After the seizure of Constantinople
the term Rum was applied by the Arabs and other peoples of the East mostly
to the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. This was the position when the
Portuguese arrived in India, as described by Tom6 Pires and later by Orta,
Barros and Couto, though not very clearly. Orta goes so far as to say that
only the Turks of Constantinople were called Rumes, and not those of
Anatolia, though this was the home of the Rum empire. Even today the
Greeks living in Ottoman territory are still called Rumi. The various uses of
the term throughout the centuries made it rather indefinite and have led to a
considerable amount of confusion which, even in recent times, has not been
explained satisfactorily enough. No wonder Pires is not very clear.
3 The Lisbon MS has mudini. Omitted in Ramusio.
PERSIA
23
called Shiishan (Ssusan), and which also belongs to Persia. Now
in [the book of] Esther, about Ahasuerus and his wife Vashti,
it tells clearly of this city^ All these provinces are ruled by
the Sheikh Ismail, who is known there in the regions behind the
wind as the Equaliser (Jguoalador) or Sophy. And as we said in the
description of Ormuz that the king has the red cap which is the
sign of this Sheikh, it is fitting that we should say where he and
his law had their beginning. And the whole of Europe is known
here as the people behind the wind. The Persians are horsemen,
with arms of every kind beautifully adorned, and with swords
of good workmanship. They are men of our colour, form and
feature. There is no doubt that those who wear the red cap are
more like the Portuguese than like people from anywhere else.
The caps are high with twelve pleats and narrowing from the
head to the top, and with a coif coming round. The Sheikh
Ismail spends most of his time in Tabriz, which is fifty days’
journey on camels from Ormuz. The land of Persia has all kinds
of domestic animals, such as we have in our own country; and
the land of Persia has many ounces, lions, and tigers.
The Persians are very fond of pleasure, very orderly in their
dress, and use many perfumes. They anoint themselves with
aloes and with costly scented unguents. They have many wives.
They are served by eunuchs, and the eunuchs who have charge
of the women rise to be great lords. The Moors in general are all
jealous men, and thus for all their good looks most of them are
sodomites, including the Persians and the people of Ormuz.
And they do not consider this to be unsuitable to their condi-
tion, nor are they punished for it, and there are even public
places where they practise this for money. And those who suffer
this are beardless and go about dressed like women, and the
Moors laugh at us when we point out to them the turpitude of
this sin.
This land of Persia is the most ancient and the most noble of FoL i23r.
all Asia. It has always had monarchs [who are] great lords. This
country has many famous provinces. It is they who obtained
this Empire of Nabucodonosor and his son Cyrus and Darius
and Ahasuerus and Xerxes and others. It was in this land that
' In the Lisbon MS this passage was altered; Ramusio suppressed it.
Origin of
the sect of
the
Sophy^.
24 TOME FIRES
the great Alexander made his widespread conquests. It is not
sterile and mountainous as some writers say, but abounding
in all delights, with domestic men, full of courtesy, well dressed,
magnanimous and valiant in feats of arms, with beautiful horses.
They are hunters of wild beasts and of all sorts of birds. And the
land of Shiraz is the choicest of Persia, a land abounding in
wheat, wine, meat, fruits and — like our own country — not
lacking in nuts, chestnuts and dried figs.
In the time of Mohammed, a Moorish Arab, he [Mohammed]
had Ali for a son-in-law, Ali who was his nephew and married
to his daughter Fatima. There were four companions in
Mohammed’s company; one was called Othman, another Abu
Bakr, another Omar and another Hacahar^. These were helpers
in the Koran. After Mohammed’s death Abu Bakr was elected
captain because he was the oldest. Ali did not sufFer this
willingly, and showed that the said choice should have fallen
upon him as nephew and as son-in-law^. He refused to obey Abu
Bakr, and when Abu Bakr died Othman became the chief, and
thus all of them and then Ali. They say that all these four were
Christians and they are all buried in Medina, a place in Arabia
which is three days’ journey across the desert from Mecca.
From these four who came after Mohammed, there come to
be four kinds of Moors, called Shafi’i {xafij), Malike (malaqj),
Hanafi (anafij), and Hanbali {hambarjy. Each one of them
’ Sofi or Sophy was the name given for a long time by the Europeans to the
Shah of Persia. This ‘Sofi’ was Safi-ud-Din (which means ‘Purity of
Religion’) a great supporter of the mystical doctrine of Islam — Sufism, dating
from the second century of the Hejira — the principle of which is that through
meditation, ecstasy and rigorous observance of discipline, man can raise him-
self almost to divinity and be identified with it. From the name of the
doctrine the name Sufi, or Sophy, was given to this ancestor, and that of
Safavi to the dynasty which began with Ismail in 1499 and lasted till 1736.
^ In the Lisbon MS the four names are given as Tamao, Bulbacar, Hamaar,
and Acamar. The whole of this chapter on the Sophy is omitted in Ramusio.
The first four Caliphs who succeeded Mohammed were Abu Bakr, Omar,
Othman, and Ali, who died respectively in 634, 644, 656 and 661, all of them
disciples and companions of the Prophet. It seems as if this Hacabar or
Acamar is some mistake of the transcriber. I cannot find any name which
might properly suggest Hacabar.
3 Ali was cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, not nephew.
* Xafij, malaqi, anafij and hambarj, appear as xafim, malaquj, anafy and
ambari in the Lisbon MS. These four schools of law of the Sunnis date from
PERSIA
25
departed from Mohammed’s own intentions at his death, and
each wished to endow himself with a spirit of false prophecy,
like Mohammed, whence there are still these four kinds of
Moors in those parts today, far removed from one another in
the manner of their beliefs.
When it came to his turn to govern, Ali also began to make
himself out a prophet, and greater than the others had been, and
he wrote a book in which he said evil things about his father-in-
law and the companions, thus affirming that he had a better
spirit of prophecy than the others, and pointing out things to
their discredits And he commanded that from thenceforward
they should name Ali in their prayers and not Mohammed, say-
ing that he had won much land at the point of his lance, that
the twelve signs of the heavens were with him and that they had
come together at his birth to make him a knight and a great
prophet, and that he did not want any Moor to believe what his
father-in-law had said about putting the sun in his sleeve, and
[he also did] other things to undermine the authority of
Mohammed, as the Moors know. And the immediate result of
this were the followers of Ali, who are called Shi’ites {ZeidisY
and Rafadis and are Moors who believe in Ali; and the Sheikh
Ismail is a Rafadi.
As Ali had been severe in his rule, after his death some of his
followers went over to the beliefs of Mohammed and others still
held those of Ali. The followers of Mohammed and others in-
creased so greatly in numbers that they published a law to the
effect that all followers of Ali must die, saying that he had not
been a prophet nor a saint, but that he had been a good knight
the ninth century. Islam is divided into three principal sects whose differ-
ences are mainly about the office of the Caliph — Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kha-
warij. The Sunnis, who hold that the Caliphate must be filled by election,
and that the Caliph is not infallible, are the most numerous of the Muslims —
at present about 150 millions out of a total of 235 millions.
' Sentences of Ali, translated by W. Yule, Edinburgh 1832, contains col-
lections of proverbs and verses which bear the name of Ali.
^ Zeidis, appears as Zeylldes in the Lisbon MS. The Shi’ites, from Shi’a —
‘the party of Ali’, are second in importance to the Sunnis. They hold that Ali
and his descendants are the rightful Caliphs, and that the Caliphate is not an
office of election but given by God, the Caliph being infallible. There are
about twelve million Shi’ites today, mainly in Persia.
26
TOME FIRES
Birth of
the
Sheikh
Ismail or
in his time; wherefore it has come about from that day to this
that many Moorish followers of Ali have been executed as here-
tics in the Moorish countries, so that the followers of Ali have
been considered to be outside the law, and they do not go to
Mecca, and yet however much they were punished for Ali, he
always had many secret followers among the Moors until the
time of this Sheikh Ismail.
Sheikh Ismail is a Persian, native of the region of Shiraz, a
nobleman by birth, and belonging to the great Shi’as, who are
men who despise the world and live in solitude so that they may
the Sophy, remain in poverty. The father of this Sheikh was one who was
held by the Moors to be a good man, and he descended from the
family of Ali, and had three sons. The Sheikh Ismail is the
middle oneh and they are all still alive. Sheikh Ismail’s father
used often to talk to the king of Shiraz and they were friends.
They often conversed together, talking in such a way that the
king of Shiraz became offended with the Sheikh and killed him.
Some say that the Sheikh kept admonishing the king of Shiraz to
learn about All’s teaching and to accept his opinion. Others say
that they had a quarrel and that the king of Shiraz favoured
Mohammed while the Sheikh was in favour of Ali, so that the
Sheikh was killed there. And they say that the dead Sheikh had
these sons by a Christian woman, an Armenian of good parent-
age, and that he had converted her to the beliefs of Ali. And for
five years after the death of his father, the Sheikh Ismail stayed
with his mother and with one of his uncles, an Armenian
Christian.
Fol. I23V. When the father died, there is no doubt that the son stayed
in his mother’s house from the time he was ten years old, which
was when they killed his father, until he was fifteen. When he
was a boy of fifteen he lived in the company of his Christian
relations, with whom he stayed for six years. The Christians fed
him and taught him, and he took from them what seemed to him
good, and he was always obedient to them, so that he grew up
in goodness and discretion; and on the advice of his Christian
relatives he sent a letter to the king of Shiraz asking the king to
> Ismail was the youngest of the three brothers, not the middle one, as
asserted by Fires.
PERSIA
27
give him food as he had killed his father. He was answered with
a staff and a rosary, by way of mockery, that these were his
because he was a Sheikh [but] a poor man. The indignant boy,
instructed in our faith by his relatives, went to a king near
Shiraz and asked for help against him, since the king was his
enemy, and for the loan of some money, with the help of which
— added to some which his relatives gave him — he sought to kill
the king of Shiraz. He received help, and by his own industry
got together two thousand men and raided the land. After having
robbed it he decided one Friday, against the will of those he had
with him, to enter the city by day. He entered and they say that
he killed sixty thousand men and had the city in his hands and
pillaged it^ and that he raised his forces to the strength of thirty
thousand warriors, with whom he waged war for seven or eight
years, so that he has the whole province of Persia with all its
kingdoms on his side. Of the two thousand men collected to-
gether by the Sheikh Ismail three hundred were horsemen, two
hundred of these being Armenian Christians related to his
mother and the remaining hundred being relatives of his
father. The men on foot belonged to the latter. The money he
had was for maintenance, and he had no more people [than
this] at the beginning of his undertaking, and now his people
are beyond numbers. When he entered the city of Shiraz
he had eight thousand fighting men, including six thousand
horsemen.
All these things he does by the advice of these Christians.
They say that he never destroys any Christian dwelling nor kills
any Christian. They say that he must have with him ten thou-
sand men — Armenian Christians, and some of other nations,
with whom he carries out the great enterprises, and all the kings
yield themselves to him and obey him. He reforms our churches,
destroys the houses of all Moors who follow Mohammed and
never spares the life of any Jew. He makes war on the Sultan
wherever he finds him, and on the people of Turkey. He is
growing in power. He sends the red cap to the kings. If
' ‘Ismail attacked Tabriz, which surrendered, and was proclaimed Shah.’
Sykes, A History of Persia, ii, 159. Pires is not very clear; it looks as if he
sometimes mistakes Shiraz for Tabriz.
28 TOM^ PIRES
they take it they are friends and if not they become mortal
enemies ^
This Sheikh must be a man of from thirty to thirty-two years
old. He lives most of the time in Tabriz. He is small of body,
with powerful limbs, and wears the cap^ himself. In older times
the Moors belonging to this sect used not to wear the cap; but
this Sheikh commands that it be worn. Some say that the twelve
folds secretly represent the twelve apostles^; but the most cer-
tain thing he often publishes [is] that he praises Ali as the great-
est prophet of all, that the heavenly signs served him, and for this
reason he wears the twelve folds [in his cap], which has to be red
as a sign that whoever will not accept it will have to have a red
cap made with his own blood. They say that he is a gracious,
liberal man, and he orders the death of every Mohammedan
who is known to drink wine, but allows it those who wear the
red cap, so that there is now no man in all Persia who does not
belong to his sect. The citizens of note wear the cap, and if the
poor people have not the wherewithal to buy they do not wear
it; however, they are all followers of Ali. They say that he is
noble in his person. He already has sons. He has many wives. In
the lands of the Moors, that is, in that of the Sultan [of Egypt]
and in that of the king of Aden, many people are joining this
sect, and they do not dare to kill them, and every day many
Mohammedans are coming over to Ali’s side. Many of the
Syrian Arabs have already been converted to the sect of Ali,
which the Moors consider a bad sign. The Sheikh is a circum-
* When Pires wrote this, the great defeat inflicted by Selim the Terrible,
Sultan of Turkey, in 1514, upon the Sheikh Ismail, from which he escaped
with difficulty, after being badly wounded and nearly taken prisoner, had not
yet occurred.
2 Mestre Afonso, who came from India to Portugal through Persia, in
1565—6, refers to this headgear as follows: ‘All the rest of the Moors . . . with
the exception of the relatives of Mohammed who wear the hair in long plats
under their turbans, wear hats, which are made of red cloth like large round
caps, quilted with cotton-wool, and from the centre there rises a straight
horn of the same cloth, which they call hat {carapufoo), two spans long and
as thick as an arm, divided vertically in twelve folds, in memory and venera-
tion of the twelve sons of Ali, whose sect they follow. ’ Ytinerario de Mestre
Affonso, p. 192.
3 These twelve Apostles were the twelve Imams, descended from Ali,
origin of the important sect of the Shi’ites — the Twelvers.
PERSIA
29
cized Moor and a follower of All, although many Moors say
that he is a Christian. He sends learned Moorish subjects of
his to the kings to argue for the sect of Ali against Mohammed’s
doctrine. And the ambassadors sent by this Sheikh are attended
by many mounted men, well dressed people of good appearance,
very sumptuous, with vessels of gold and silver, which show
forth the greatness of the Sheikh. To all the Moorish kings he
sends gifts and presents, and learned men so that they may
follow his law. He says that he will not rest until he sees all the
Moors made followers of Ali in his time, and after that will come
that which he knows ought to come. The Moorish people are
for this new Sheikh and are so much the more angry at Your
Highness’ powers
There are a large number of merchants in this land of Persia, Fol. i24r.
and the land in itself does a great deal of trade covering the
country from Cairo^ as far as the land of the Armenians, where
there are many rich and noble provinces. And a great deal of
trade comes to Persia from Turkey through Syria. The land of
Shiraz {Xiridf and [other lands in this country] have a great
deal of silk from which rich cloths are made, and many
kinds of camlet in fine colours and very good. They have
great quantities of tutty, a great deal of alum, copperas and
antimony, which the Moors use. They have many horses and
many foodstuffs. They have many turquoises which are found
in the land of Shiraz {Xiras). They have much wax, honey,
butter. All these things are natural products of the country.
From the Delhi side beyond the mountain range there seem to
come by way of Siam, from kingdom to kingdom, musk, rhu-
barb, agallochum or apothecary’s lignaloes, camphor. All these
things and many others come to Ormuz: great carpets and
tapestries, woollen cloth of many kinds and colours, hats and
' In the Lisbon MS this paragraph ends quite differently: ‘And afterwards
he says that that will happen which he knows [will happen], and they think
that it will be his becoming a Christian, as they say he is in secret. ’
2 In the Paris MS it is distinctly written cauo, which may mean ‘cape’ or
‘end’; but in the Lisbon MS we read cayro, and Cairo in Ramusio, though in
the latter the arrangement of the paragraph was slightly altered.
s In the Lisbon MS Xiria has been mistranscribed as Ri(f {Riqueza,
wealth).
TOME FIRES
30
caps such as they wear, much beautifully ornamented armour.
They return a large quantity of spices and drugs, chiefly pepper
— for they are still greater eaters of soups {potagees) than the
Germans— in which they trade greatly, distributing it among
their countrymen. They buy seed-pearls, rice, white cloth,
beatilha, benzoin and things of that sort.
This land of Persia with all its regions lies between two rivers,
the Tigris and the Euphrates, and some people affirm that these
two rivers do not run into the ocean, but that they end in Persia
and that they go into the Persian Gulf into a large navigable sea
or salt-water lake which there is in Persia and which is entirely
surrounded by land, with beautiful dwelling-places, in the pro-
vince of Guilan, and that boats sail [there] and that it is about
twenty leagues across, that there are storms there and much fish
which is salted and sent wherever it can go in Persia, and some
is dried. Others say that this sea is larger, but I verified my in-
formation with many people who told me that this is the
measure, which seems to me to be large. This is far from Ormuz
— more than two months’ journey on camels. Others say that
the Tigris flows through Syria and comes to an end almost in
the sea in the Strait of Ormuz, a matter of twelve leagues, and
that it has already become small because it divides into branches.
It flows rapidly, it is narrow and not navigable; in some places it
can be crossed on foot, and in others with rafts or boats as you
will. An arrow is called in Parsi tir, and on account of the swift-
ness of the river it is called Tigrish
The Euphrates rises in Armenia and they say that it flows into
the ocean and that it divides the Nodhakis from the Rajputs;
and the people of Cambay call this river Frataa, and [they say]
that it comes from the farthest confines of Persia, and little use
is made of the land through which this [river] flows. It is a large
river and does not flow so swiftly as the Tigris and it is navigable
inland with light boats, sailed by the people of these parts
through which it flows. Leaving Persia and going towards India
by sea we come to the land of the Nodhakis.
* On the Persian word tir, ‘an arrow’, and its connexion with the name of
the river Tigris, see Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Tiger, note.
NODHAKIS 31
NODHAKIS
The Nodhakis {Naitaquesy have the Persians as neighbours
on the one side and the Rajputs on the Cambay side, and inland
they have the mountainous land of the province of Delhi, and
on the other they have the sea. These Nodhakis are heathens;
there are no Moors among them. It is a large country with many
inhabitants who are spread over the country inland. They have
no king and live in bands {cahilas). None of these ever recog-
nized the name of Mohammed. They have a language of their
own. They have no cities. They have villages in the mountain
ranges, and this river^ makes them very powerful, because it
waters the whole of the plain. The land itself produces a great
many foodstuffs: wheat, barley and fruits. Most of them are
pirates and go in light boats. They are archers, and as many as
two hundred put to sea and rob, when they have an oppor-
tunity, and sometimes they get as far as Ormuz and enter the
Straits in their marauding, and that is what they live on. These
men carry bows, swords and lances, and they are not very
domestic. Often they come and anchor at the mouth of this
river on account of the weather, and it is a road with shallows and
rocks. Sometimes the Nodhakis seize any ship that goes there,
and at other times they go to the kingdom of Cambay to the
ports there, and if they find anything they steal where they can.
They fear no one, nor have they any rivers in their lands where
they can take refuge, and there are many in these parts. They
are known to be men of this kind.
Those who sow and work in the land have many horses and 124V.
many mares on which they go about like the nomads, and steal
whatever they can find. These people live in peace and friend-
* Noutaques in the Lisbon MS; Motages in Ramusio’s translation. Barbosa
does not refer to this people, but Danaes says in a note on the Sheikh Ismail that
the Nautaques referred to by several sixteenth-century writers, are the Nodhaki
tribe of Baloches, in which he agrees with Barros. This region corresponds
approximately to a part of the Persian province of Kamir and to Baluchistan.
2 Pires does not say which river this is, but he must refer to the Rio dos
Noutaques which appears in several Portuguese sixteenth-century maps. It is
possible that this river corresponds better to the present Dasht River, as
seems more clearly indicated by R dos noutaces on L. Homem’s map of 1554.
TOM^ PIRES
32
ship with the Rajputs, and they do not forgive the Moors any-
thing, and [they forgive] any other people. The Nodhakis have
great affinity with the Rajputs, and although they have lived for
so long in lands surrounded by Moors, they could never have
been subjugated. They are bold highwaymen. The land of the
Nodhakis is more extensive and more populated than that of the
Rajputs, but the Rajputs are a better people as I shall explain
later in the proper place.
RAJPUTS
The Rajputs {ResputesY have the Nodhakis for neighbours on
the Persian side, and on the Cambay side their land is bounded
by Cambay itself. Inland there is the land of Delhi and on the
other side is the ocean. These Rajputs are heathens with no
Moors among them. They have no king; they have an overlord
whom they obey. Their land has powerful fortresses and strong-
holds. They are brave men and riders. They have many horses,
and most of them have mares, on which they fight. Their land
is rich and very good. Its foodstuffs are many and it is cultivated
and vigorous in itself. And there is not much land because it has
been taken from them. These people are better fighters than
their neighbours and they are constantly at war with the king of
Cambay. They often harm him and put him to confusion be-
cause they are cunning and learned and with small forces they
are able not only to hold their own but also constantly to harry
the people of Cambay. They are not powerful enough to be able
to fight against Cambay in the field in squadrons, but their idea
is to make sudden attacks on horseback. They seize booty and
capture one another. These Rajputs are skilful in war, vigorous
and great archers.
They also have an outlet to the sea, where they keep rowing
boats and seize booty wherever they can find it, like the Nod-
hakis; but all their power is on land. Some people affirm it was
some of these Rajputs and Nodhakis who had access to the
Amazons whose country inland is bounded by theirs and by
* Risbutos in the Lisbon MS; Rebutes in Ramusio’s translation.
CAMBAY
33
Cambay, as I shall explain in my description of Cambay^. On
the Delhi side their country stretches inland in great ranges of
mountains. This region has already had a king, but a while ago
they killed him and no other was made afterwards. This king-
dom has the beautiful cities of Herat (Ara), Crodi, Vamistra and
Argengij^. The chief captain of all this kingdom is called Pimpall
Varaa^, and one of his sisters who is called Bibi Kane‘S is married
to the king of Cambay, to whom her father gave her in the inter-
est [of the state] before he died, and they say she is beautiful.
[cam bay]
Kingdom
The noble kingdom of Cambay is bordered on one side in the Fol. i25t.
direction of Persia by the region of the Rajputs, and on the side
of the Second India by the great kingdom of the Deccan {Da~
quern), and inland by the kingdom of Delhi and on the [word Cambay,
missing, other?] side by the ocean®. This kingdom separates
from that of the Deccan between Mahim (Maymi) and Chaul.
The kingdom itself is large, abundant in all kinds of wheat,
barley, millet, vegetables, fruits, and having many horses, ele-
phants, game-birds and many others in cages, of different kinds
and highly prized. The land is thickly populated and has beauti-
ful cities both on the coast and inland, as well as large villages.
It has horsemen and much artillery and every warlike device.
* In the Lisbon MS this sentence reads: ‘Some assert that these Rjsbutos
were those who had relations with the Amazons who on one part of the
hinterland border on Cambay.’
2 Aka is Herat, the city in western Afghanistan. It appears also as Hara,
Harah, Eri, Heri or Heriunitis in old reports of Asiatic travels. Cf. Cathay and
the Way Thither, i, 190, 293; in, 22.
Crodi — Crode in the Lisbon MS, Crodi in Ramusio. Perhaps Kotri, a
town in the District of Karachi.
Vamistra — Vamiste in the Lisbon MS, Vamista in Ramusio. Vaman-
sthali, ancient city and capital, near Girnar and modern Bilkha, in Kathiawar,
Bombay? Imp. Gaz. of India, s.v. Girnar.
Argengij — Argemgij in the Lisbon MS, Argengo in Ramusio. The city of
Arguda, of Ptolemy’s Geography, or Argandi, south-west of Kabul? Cunning-
ham, The Ancient Geography of India, p. 38.
3 Vara only in the Lisbon MS and Ramusio.
* Bibi means lady in Persian, and Rane or Rani is either the consort of a
Hindu rajah, or rana, a queen. It appears as Biberade in the Lisbon MS
and in Ramusio.
® According to the Lisbon MS.
f . H.C.S. I.
TOME FIRES
Cities on
the coast
and
inland.
34
also many caparisoned horses, much armour of great beauty,
both plate-armour and coat-of-mail, lances with beautiful heads,
long swords, daggers — all beautifully ornamented. All is great.
The people have many men at arms' and warriors. From out-
side they have Mafaris, Arabs, Turkomans, Rumes, Persians,
that is from Guilan and from Khorasan, and Abyssinians, all
untainted races, with whose assistance they are constantly
fighting with the neighbouring kingdoms with whom they are
at war. Among these nations there are many who are renegade
Christians.
The principal cities on the coast are Surat {^urrate), Rander
{Rand), Diu. Cambay has other ports with many inhabitants:
they are Mahim {Maymj), Daman (Damana), Patan, Gogha
{Guoguay, Diu. Gogha and Mahim are governed by Melequiaz^,
a Persian Moor of the Guilan race. Daman, Surat and Rander
are under the jurisdiction of Dasturcan^, a Moorish lord born in
Cambay. Patan is governed by the son of the king of Cambay,
* Although it is written Dalmas (of souls) in the MS, it should be 'de artnas'
(at arms), as in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
^ Ranei — Reneri further on, Rjnell in the Lisbon MS, and Reiner and
Reinari in Ramusio. It is found as Reynel, Reinel or Reiner in Barbosa and the
Portuguese chroniclers. Ribeiro’s maps of 1527 and 1529 show Reinel, as in
Barbosa. This is explained by the fact that Ribeiro and Centurione when in
Seville, where the maps were drawn, translated into Italian the Limo de
Duarte Barbosa. It corresponds to the modern Rander, on the other side of
the Tapti River, almost opposite Surat.
Maymj, Maymi or May — This appears as Mejmym or Majm in the Lisbon
MS. It corresponds to Mahim or Kelve Mahim, at the present day a small
port about half-way between Dahanu and Agashi. This must not be confused
with the Maimbij which corresponds to the Mahim or Mahikavati on Bombay
island. See note on p. 39.
Patan — Patdo in the Lisbon MS, Patam in Ramusio. It appears as Patan,
Patane and Pate in many sixteenth-century Portuguese maps and chronicles.
It must correspond to the modern Veraval.
Guogua or Guogarj, appears as Goga and Gogary in the Lisbon MS, and as
Goga and Gogari in Ramusio. It is recorded as Porto de goga in Rodrigues’
map of the western part of India. It is Gogha, a port in the District of
Ahmadabad on the west coast of the Gulf of Cambay.
3 All the Portuguese chroniclers, including Albuquerque in his Cartas, and
other sixteenth-century writers, refer at length to Melique Az, or Malik’Aiyaz,
and his relations with the Portuguese. Melique, from the Arab Malik, king,
meant also prince, governor and chief in the East.
* Dastur Elhan.
CAMBAY
35
who is called Sultan Xaquendar^, The city of Cambay is made
the jurisdiction of Sey Debiaa, a person of importance in the
country, a noble Moor of repute among them. The principal
inland cities are Champaner {Champanell) and Ahmadabad
(Medadaue), Baroda (Varodrra) and Bharoch {Baruezy. These
cities have Grand Viziers or Captains, men by whom the whole
kingdom is governed. This Melique Az was a foot soldier, an
archer, and was given governorship on the Diu side, because it
was the least important part of Cambay 3 and almost all wild
jungle before our discovery of India; and because the ports of
the Deccan were always kept under restraint, Diu became great
through our friendship, and now it is an important place where
there is more respect for justice than an)nvhere else in the king-
dom. There are three hundred horses in its stables, which are
kept up out of the revenues of the land.
From Diu to Champaner is eight days’ journey; from Cambay Distance
to Champaner is two days’ journey; from Surat and Rander to
Champaner is five days, all over land. towns to
The best city of the interior is Champaner. It is not large, but Gham-
it is civilized and well built; and the city with the most trade is
that of Cambay. It is on the gulf [and this] is full of shallows, Ghief
between one and four fathoms deep. This town has the best
merchandise, and almost all its trade is in the hands of heathens.
The other towns have good ports with fortresses in them. The
kingdom of Cambay does not extend far inland.
* Sikandar Khan, the eldest son of Muzaffar II, who did not become sultan
till 1535.
^ Champaner — Champanell in the Lisbon MS, Campanel in Ramusio.
‘The proper form of the name is Champaner.’ Dames, I, 123. A ruined city
twenty-five miles north of Baroda, at the north-east foot of Pavagarh, a
fortified hill of great strength. The Imp. Gaz. of India, s.v.
Medadaue — Madadane in the Lisbon MS, Medadune in Ramusio, Andava
in Barbosa. This is Ahmadabad.
Varodrra — Barodria in the Lisbon MS, Zarodria in Ramusio, that is
Baroda.
Baruez — The same in the Lisbon MS, Banues and Barmez in Ramusio.
It corresponds to Bharoch or Broach, the most important port between
Cambay and Surat.
^ The transcriber of the Lisbon MS added some further information: ‘This
is Meliquias, who died in the year 1522. He was an archer, and before that a
captain [sic for captive], and many times sold. He was made governor of Dio
because it was the least important port in Cambay.’
TOM^ PIRES
36
Coinage. The smallest coin in this country is a copper one thicker than
the ceitil. They have silver coins called mastamudes., worth three
vintens apiece. They also have another silver coin called rnada-
forxasK Gold is also current in the same denomination and in
bars by their standards and values.
Fol. ijor. The king of Cambay is called Sultan Madaforxa^, and his
Conc^n- father was called Sultan Mafamud^. This king is at war with the
^kingdom Mandu {Mandao) and with the king of Indo and with
of the Rajputs and to some extent with Delhi, and I will therefore
Cambay, gpeak of these a little.
This king of Delhi stays inland. His land was formerly the
greatest in these parts. He had dominion over the Rajputs,
Cambay and part of the kingdom of the Deccan, the king of
Mandu and the king of Indo. This king’s land encompasses the
whole province of Narsinga, and he is constantly at war with the
Bengalees and with the kings of the hinterland whose lands
border on Orissa, and with Orissa. He was a heathen. The
kings of Delhi have been Mohammedans for a hundred and
fifty years. They had captains in all these kingdoms. Each of
them rose up and made himself king, as the one in Cambay did.
High mountains^ intervene between Delhi and Cambay, so that
the king of Delhi could not attack Cambay. There is only a
small pass into the land, which is held by a Gujarat Jogee who
does not allow the people of Delhi to enter Cambay; and when
this king writes to the king of Cambay he calls him ‘my vizir’
or ‘captain’. This king of Delhi has a large and very moun-
tainous country. The mountain ranges which pass through his
‘ Ceitil — An old Portuguese coin worth only one-sixth of a real.
Mastamudes — Pires’ mastamude corresponds to the old Persian silver coin
mahmudi, called mamude by the Portuguese chroniclers and in the Lisbon
MS, which had currency in Cambay and the Gujarat.
ViNTEM — A Portuguese coin equal to 20 reis, or id. at par.
Madaforxas — madrafaxaos in the Lisbon MS, an old silver or gold coin
which had currency in Cambay and the Gujarat, called by the Portuguese
chroniclers madrafaxos, madrafaxas, madrafaxaos or madrafaxoes.
^ Mudhaffar or Muzaffar Shah II, called Soltdo Madrafaxa in the Lisbon
MS and Soltam Moordafaa by Barbosa.
3 Mahmud Shah I, called Soltdo Mafamede in the Lisbon MS and Soltam
Mahamude by Barbosa.
The Malwa Plateau, bounded on the south by the Vindhya Range and on
the north-west by the Aravalli Range.
CAMBAY
37
country are the Caucasian mountains of which cosmographers
tell us. His land has countless kinds of food, people, horses,
elephants. There are innumerable heathen in his kingdoms. His
country extends a long way inland. This king is called the King
of the Indies, and he continuously lives inland.
On the skirts of this mountain ranged, bordering on the land King of
of Cambay, is the king of Mandu. This is the kingdom where
the women whom we call Amazons used to fight in olden times,
Now they no longer take part in warfare, but they still hunt on
horseback with buskins and spurs after their guise. They say
that this king still has about two thousand women who ride with
him3. This king has many subjects, and his land is rocky and
strong. Mandu also borders on the Rajput country. This king of
Mandu is subject to the king of Delhi. This king has only been a
Mohammedan for a short time. Kingdom
The kingdom of Indo has already been converted to [the of Indo^
faith of] Cambay. They are already all Mohammedans. It is a
small and mountainous country. They say that indigo comes
from here and a small quantity of lac is also produced here; and
a great deal of the Cambay merchandise comes from the Raj-
puts, Mandu and Delhi, and [Cambay] distributes their goods
for them, because the other provinces, that is Delhi, Mandu,
Indo and others, are inland, while Cambay has a sea-coast.
This kingdom of Indo used to be very famous. It is inland.
And from this kingdom there runs a river which flows into the
^Madou in the Lisbon MS, Mandou or Mando in the Portuguese chron-
iclers, corresponds to Mandu or Mandogarh, now a ruined city in the Dhar
State of Central India, ‘on the summit of a flat-topped hill in the Vindhyan
range.’ Imp. Gaz. of India, s.v.
^ Vindhya Range.
5 In his letter of 26 Jan. 1516, Pires refers again to these Amazons of
Mandu, ‘warlike women who now fight on horseback’. Appendix I.
* The origin of the names Indus, India, Hindus and others of the same
etymologic group is the Sanskrit Sindhu, ‘the sea’. In many Asiatic languages
the word Sindh actually indicates the sea or an important river, whence the
River Sindh. Pliny had referred to ‘the Indus, called by the inhabitants
Sindus’. McCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian,
p. 143. The earlier Mohammedans distinguished Sind and Hind as different
parts of the whole region which we call India, the latter name being applied to
the country beyond the Indus. It seems that Pires’ Kingdom of Indo, which
he says is a ‘small thing’, lay in the present Rajputana, somewhere between
the Punjab and Cambay. Hobson-Jobson, s.v. India and Sind.
TOME FIRES
Ports of
Cambay
up to the
Deccan.
38
sea; it is called Qindy by some, others call it the Indy\ and the
people of the kingdom are called Indios. This river divides the
Rajputs from Cambay. This kingdom used to be at the head of
Cambay. This is where India begins, and it is on account of this
kingdom that the king of Cambay was called the king of the
First India. It is a large river. There is a large town where it
flows into the sea, with many ships and merchants both heathen
and Mohammedan. The governor is an Indo heathen.
Imdi, Kharepatan {Carapatani), Patan, Diu, Manar {Manna),
Telaja {Tata telaya), Gandhar {Guendarj), Gogha {Guogari),
Cambay, Bharoch {Baruez), Surat {Qurrate), Render {Reneri),
Dahanu {Dionj), Agashi {Agagy), Bassein {Baxa), Mahim
{Maimbijy.
‘ In the Lisbon MS these names read as follows: ‘Imde/ barapatao / patao /
dio/ manuaa/ tatelaya/ guadari/ gogary/ cambaia/ baruez/ Rejnell/ furrate/
diuny/ agazy/ baxaa/ maimby/’.
Imdi — On P. Kernel’s maps of c. 1517 and c. 1518 — the closest in date to
Pires’ writing — we read daulcinde near a river which seems to correspond to
the modern Porali River, but it must be the westernmost mouth of the Indus.
The map of c. 1 540 has diull and diu{J)(imde. This river of Reinel’s maps
appears in later ones, of the middle sixteenth century, as R. dos guzarates and
R. simde, some of them showing diul or diuli (L. Homem, 1554) on the right-
hand bank, near the mouth. This is the Diul or Diulsinde of Barbosa and other
early Portuguese writers and cartographers. Barros refers to ‘Diul situated
on the first mouth of the Indus, on the side of the west’, i, ix, i. Diul is the
Portuguese form for Dewal or Daibul, which according to Yule was ‘a once
celebrated city and seaport of Sind, mentioned by all the Arabian geogra-
phers, and believed to have stood at or near the site of modern Karachi'.
Hobson- jfobson, s.v. Diul-Sind. Diul-Sind may also be the port Sonmiani, at
the mouth of the Porali River, an important place before the rise of Karachi,
through which much of the trade of Central Asia was carried via Kalat. Imp.
Gaz. of India, s.v. Sonmiani. Although it is not easy to explain why Pires
wrote Indi for ‘Diul-Sind’, it seems that he meant the latter, as there was no
other important port before Kharepatan.
Carapatani — Kharepatan. The Imp. Gaz. of India (ii, 33, 1908 ed.) refers
to ‘Kharepatan plates bearing the record of the ^ilahara prince Rattaraja of
A.D. 1008’. At the mouth of the Hab River there was a port called Kharak,
with a considerable commerce. The entrance to Kharak harbour became
blocked with sand, and its inhabitants migrated to a place called Kalachi
Kun, on the other side of the river, near Karachi, a recent foundation. Cf.
Imp. Gaz. of India, s.v. Karachi City. Pattan means ‘a port’ in Hindi, which
combined with Kharak seems to have given Kharepatan or Pires’ Carapatani,
Manna — Must be Manar, at the Manali River, between Telaja and Gogha.
Tata telaya — Telaja.
Guendarj — The old town of Gandhar, at the mouth of the Dhadar River,
in the Gulf of Cambay, which appears as gandar or r. de gandar in several
CAMBAY
39
It is about three hundred years since the kingdom of Cambay Heathens
was taken from the heathen; but there are still a great many of
them in Cambay, almost the third part of the kingdom, mostly
men whose faith forbids them to kill any living thing or to eat
anything that has had blood in it. There are an infinite number
of these. The heathen of Cambay are called Banians. Some
among them are priests with beautiful temples. Most of them |
are Brahmans and men given to religion; others are Pattars
{Patamaresy, the more honoured Brahmans; others are mer-
chants, as we shall see later. The heathen of Cambay are great
idolaters and soft, weak people. Some of them are men who in
their religion lead good lives, they are chaste, true men and very
abstemious. They believe in Our Lady^ and in the Trinity, and
there is no doubt that they were once Christians and that they
gradually lost the faith because of the Mohammedans. These
heathens have upright writing like ours. When they die their
wives burn themselves [alive], if they are honoured women, or
sixteenth-century Portuguese maps. It is the Guindarim of Barbosa.
Dionj — This stands for modern Dahanu, which lies thirty-two miles south-
south-west of Daman. Dinuy in Barbosa, Danu in the Portuguese chronicles
and several maps. In Livro de Marinharia (p. 223), Danu is situated eight
leagues from Daman. There is still an old Portuguese chapel in Dahanu.
Agagy — Agacim or Agagaim in the Portuguese chronicles, stands for
Agashi, which gives its name to the present Agashi Bay, twenty-eight miles
from Dahanu, into which the Waitarna River empties.
Baxa — Stands for the modern Bassein. Baxay in Barbosa, Bagaim and
south-west Basaim in the Portuguese chronicles and maps.
Maimbij — Majmby in the Lisbon MS; also called Mayambu or Mombaym
by the Portuguese. This is Mahim or Mahikavati, the first town built on
Bombay island, perhaps at the end of the thirteenth century. The name still
survives in ‘Mahim Bay’, on the extreme north of the island. Castro refers to
the ‘Island of Bombai or Mayam, which are the same’. Roteiro de Goa a Dio
(1538-9), p. 81.
’ Though Pires wrote patamares he means the Pattars, a class of Brahmans.
Further on, when dealing with the Brahmans of Malabar, he spells the word
as patadares (p. 68). Referring to the Pattars of Cambay, Pires says that
‘these are the ones who carry the letters, if they come as couriers, because
they are safe from thieves’ (p. 42). There is here, possibly, a curious con-
fusion through an association of ideas. According to Dalgado (s.v.), Patadar
or Patamar is a Luso-Indian word from the Konkani pattemar (a courier),
meaning a foot runner, a courier, or a swift light boat.
2 This belief that the Hindus were once Christians and worshipped Our
Lady seems to have been current among the Portuguese in India at that time.
Barbosa (I, 1 15) also mentions it. On the Trinity see note p. 66.
TOM^ PIRES
40
if they prize their honour. There are still great lords among
these heathens of Cambay, men who rule in the kingdom. Among
them is a certain Brahman called Milagohim}, a person who is
greatly esteemed for his qualities and richer than all the men in
the East, and a man of great credit and renown. These heathen
all have long hair. Some of them have long beards which they
cannot shave; others have long hair. They belong to various
sects and beliefs; they are subject to the Moors.
King and Thg kingdom of Cambay must have seventy or eighty leagues
Kingdom ^oast, and inland it is not large but noble, and rich and civi-
Cambay. lized, with large, strong cities with good walls and towers. The
Moorish lords live honourably. They have a great many horses —
there is one lord in Cambay who has from five to six hundred
horses and the rest are mares — large well-constructed houses
and palaces. The king is not much obeyed, because of the
foreigners. Most of the people of Cambay are poor and the great
ones among them are rich. The king must be a man of about
forty. He is called Sultan Madaforxa. They say and affirm that
these kings are brought up on poison, because they are very
tainted, so much so that if a fly touches them it dies; and that
their women are brought up on the same food, and if they spit,
it is poison; and that if anyone else puts on their clothes, they
say he dies suddenly^. But I do not believe this, although they
say it is so. This king is given to all manner of vice in eating
and lechery. They say that otherwise he is judicious. Most of
the time he is among his women, stupefied with opium.
There are about thirty thousand horsemen in the kingdom of
Cambay, and three hundred elephants, about a hundred of which
* Also referred to later as mjlaguobim and mjligobim. When describing Surat,
Barbosa (i, 149) says that ‘Hitherto a Heathen named Milocoxim held sway
and governed here, whom the king of Cambay ordered to be slain on account
of evil reports about him. This man was a great friend of the Portuguese’.
^ Barbosa refers in great detail to Mudhaffar Shah being brought up on
poison. Varthema mentions the same thing. It seems that the story was
current at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Cf. Dames, I, 12 1-2. In
Garcia de Resende’s Miscellanea, published for the first time in 1554, there
is the following stanza about Sumatra: ‘There are kings who are accustomed,/
taught so from childhood,/ always to take poison/ in very small quantities/
until they are used to it. / And if they give it them in their food / it cannot do
them any harm./ And if anyone drinks their wine, / or if a fly feeds on their
spittle, / he dies without hope of life.’ (St. 91.)
CAMBAY
41
are fighting elephants. The best town on the coast from the
point of view of buildings and of garrison is Diu; and the town
in the interior with the most foreigners is Champaner, which is
always the seat of the kings of Cambay. Champaner contains
beautiful palaces, and many people of good breeding. The chief
lords after the king are: Milagohim the heathen, then Chamalc
Make, and then Asturmalec, and the fourth is Codaudam}. These
four, with the king, govern everything. Each of these has a great
many mounted followers when he goes to the palace, and they
all have a great retinue. They are lords who are natives of the
kingdom and they are responsible for the administration of
justice, and the government of the kingdom, and the king’s
revenue; and they are the electors of the kingdom when the
king dies. They are all lords by title. The king has up to a thou-
sand wives and concubines. This king is called the king of
principal India, and because this kingdom is noble only on
account of its trade, I thought it necessary to speak of it.
1 now come to the trade of Cambay. These [people] are [like] Trade of
Italians in their knowledge of and dealings in merchandise. ^ All
the trade in Cambay is in the hands of the heathen. Their
general designation is Gujaratees, and then they are divided into
various races — Banians, Brahmans and Pattars. There is no
doubt that these people have the cream of the trade. They are
men who understand merchandise; they are so properly steeped
in the sound and harmony of it, that the Gujaratees say that any
offence connected with merchandise is pardonable. There are
Gujaratees settled everywhere. They work some for some and
others for others. They are diligent, quick men in trade. They
do their accounts with figures like ours and with our very writ-
ing. They are men who do not give away anything that belongs
to them, nor do they want anything that belongs to anyone else;
wherefore they have been esteemed in Cambay up to the present,
practising their idolatry, because they enrich the kingdom
greatly with the said trade.] There are also some Cairo merchants FoI. isir,
* These names are given in the Lisbon MS as ‘milagoly, camlemalle,
asturmallee, cadaodao’.
2 In the Lisbon MS it reads: ‘They seem to me better than Italians in the
knowledge of all merchandise.’ Ramusio omitted the reference to the Italians.
42
TOM^ PIRES
Pattars
(Pata-
mares) of
Cambay.
settled in Cambay, and many Khorasans and Guilans from Aden
and Ormuz, all of whom do a great trade in the seaport towns
of Cambay; but none of these count in comparison with the
heathens, especially in knowledge. Those of our people who
want to be clerks and factors ought to go there and learn, be-
cause the business of trade is a science in itself which does not
hinder any other noble exercise, but helps a great deal.
The Pattars of Cambay are the most honoured Brahmans.
They are originally descended from the kings of Cambay, be-
cause in older times the kings were Brahmans, as they are in
Malabar today. These [Pattars] take the merchandise through
the country, and the merchants are greatly esteemed. Even
when going through robber-infested country, the merchants are
not molested if they are accompanied by a Pattar; and they have
this distinction in these parts. And if they rob them, they kill
themselves, or wound themselves with daggers, and the other
Brahmans anoint the images with their blood and drag them
along, until justice is done, and they do it and give them back
what is theirs. The Brahmans are held in great esteem among
the heathen; and these are the most honoured because they do
not eat anything that has been living. These are the ones who
carry the letters, if they come as couriers^ because they are safe
from the thieves. You shall find what manner of men they are
back^ in the description of Malabar.
And so both the Gujaratis and the merchants who have
settled in Cambay — the chief city of Miligobim — sail many ships
to all parts, to Aden, Ormuz, the kingdom of the Deccan, Goa,
Bhatkal, all over Malabar, Ceylon, Bengal, Pegu, Siam, Pedir,
Pase (Paefe) and Malacca, where they take quantities of mer-
chandise, bringing other kinds back, thus making Cambay rich
and important. Cambay chiefly stretches out two arms, with her
right arm she reaches out towards Aden and with the other
towards Malacca, as the most important places to sail to, and
the other places are held to be of less importance.
* See note p. 39.
^ The transcriber may have substituted atras (back) for adiante (further
on), as written in the Lisbon MS, in order to adjust the word to the arrange-
ment of his copy. See. Introduction, p. Ixxi.
CAMBAY
43
The merchants from Cairo bring the merchandise which How they
comes from Italy and Greece and Damascus to Aden, such as
gold, silver, quicksilver, vermilion, copper, rosewater, camlets,
scarlet-in-grain, coloured woollen cloth, glass beads, weapons
and things of that kind.
[The merchants of] Aden bring the above mentioned goods With
with the addition of madder, raisins, opium, rosewater, quan- ^den.
tities of gold and silver and horses that Aden gets from Zeila
and Berbera and the islands of Suakin, in the Strait, and from
Arabia, and they come to do business in Cambay. They take
back with them all the products of Malacca: cloves, nutmeg,
mace, sandalwood, brazil wood, silks, seed pearls, musk,
porcelain, and other things which may be found in the [list of]
merchandise from Malacca, as well as the following from the
country itself: rice, wheat, soap, indigo, butter [and lard?]', oils,
camelians, coarse pottery^ like that from Seville, and all kinds
of cloth, for trading in Zeila, Berbera, Sokotra, Kilwa, Malindi,
Mogadishu, and other places in Arabia. And this trade is carried
out by ships from Aden and ships from Cambay, many of one
and many of the other.
And it [Cambay] trades with all the other places I have
mentioned, bartering one kind of merchandise for another, as
none of them can maintain itself without trading with the others.
Anyone who wants more detailed knowledge of the merchandise
of each country will know what the merchants take back from
there, and I do not put it down here because the merchandise of
each country can be seen in the account of it.
It has all the silks there are in these parts, all the different Merchan-
kinds of cotton material, of which there must be twenty, all of
great value; it has camelians, indigo and a little lac which the
land produces, pachak, catechu 3, a great deal of good opium,
* Pires uses the word manteigas, ‘butters’, which may mean simply butter,
or butter and lard. In Portuguese manteiga de vaca is the ordinary butter, and
manteiga deporco, hog’s lard.
* Malegua, as it appears in the MS, is a Portuguese word which was
formerly also spelt tnalega (as in the Lisbon MS). Today it is spelt malga and
means usually a bowl or soup-dish. In this case its meaning is ‘pottery’.
3 The two words pucho and cacho used by Pires, correspond to pachak and
catechu. Sometimes transcribers put the two words together, as for example
TOM^ PIRES
Fol. 131V.
Trade
with
Ormuz.
44
wormwood^ tincal, cotton, soap in large quantities, dressed
hides, leather, honey, wax; the following foodstuffs: wheat,
barley, millet^, sesame-oil, rice, butter, meat, and things of that
sort, coarse pottery of different kinds, all natural products of
Cambay, or brought thither from the countries of the neigh-
bouring kings.
The people of Ormuz bring horses to Cambay, and silver,
gold, silk, alum, vitriob, copperas, and seed pearls. They bring
back the products of the country and those brought there from
Malacca, because they come to Cambay for all the Malacca
merchandise. The people of Ormuz take back rice and food-
in the Portuguese edition of the Livro de Duarte Barbosa (p. 289), where these
two drugs appear in a single word cachopucho. This led Dames to believe,
after discussing the matter at length (i, 155; ii, 173, 234), that it was cajeput,
‘a fragrant essential oil produced especially in Celebes and the neighbouring
island of Bouro’ (Hobson-Jobson, s.v.). The name cajeput is taken from the
Malay kayu-puteh, which means ‘white wood’; the product comes chiefly from
Melaleuca leucadendrotilAnn., ‘a large bush or a tree, very variable, found from
Tenasserim to the Moluccas’, also called Paper-bark-tree, the wood of which
is much in demand in Malaysia. Cf. Burkill, A Dictionary of the Economic
Products of the Malay Peninsula, pp. 1431-3. No reference is found to cajeput
in any early Portuguese writing. Cachopucho is referred to by Barbosa as a
product taken from Cambay to Malacca and China, and further on he says;
‘cacho and pucho (which are Cambay drugs).’ Watt does not mention cajeput.
Orta deals at length With pucho (xvil) and with cacho (xxxi). Pachak is costus,
the root of Saussurea lappa C. B. Clarke. Catechu or cutch is a pale yellow
gum from Acacia catechu Wild.
* There are several species of wormwood, or Pires’ erva lombrigueira. The
one found in Portugal is Artemisia variabilis Ten. Coutinho, A Flora de
Portugal, p. 636. Dames (i, 154), as well as several Portuguese-English
dictionaries, identify the erva lombrigueira with the southernwood or
Artemisia abrotanum. He says, however, that the southernwood alluded to was
‘probably the Artemisia indica or Indian wormwood’. Watt (pp. 93-4) refers
to several species of the genus Artemisia as found in India, but neither to A.
variabilis nor to A. indica.
^ The word milho used by Pires corresponds in Portugal today to maize or
Indian-corn, Zea Mays Linn. But he certainly does not mean this one, since
maize came to India from America, possibly brought thence direct by the
Portuguese. Cf. Watt, p. 1132. There are also in Portugal the 'milho zaburro’
— Andropogum Sorghum Linn., ‘milho meudo' — Panicum miliaceum Linn., and
'milho painfo’ — Setaria italica Linn. Coutinho, pp. 65, 67. Pires meant by
milho the Sorghum — great miWet, jowaur or juar, and Pennisetum typhoideum
Rich. — Bulrush, cumboo or spiked millet, which are extensively grown at
Cambay and in other parts of India.
3 The aziche (vitriol) of the Paris MS appears as azinhaure (aloes) in the
Lisbon MS.
CAMBAY
45
stuffs for the most part, and spice. They bring bales of soft dates
from Ormuz, and also some in jars and dried dates of three or
four kinds.
They trade with the kingdom of the Deccan and Goa and
with Malabar, and they have factors ever5rwhere, who live and Deccan
set up business — as the Genoese do in our part [of the world] — and^oa,
in places like Bengal, Pegu, Siam, Pedir, Pase, Kedah, taking Malabar
back to their own country the kind of merchandise which is and other
valued there. And there is no trading place where you do not see
Gujarat merchants. Gujarat ships come to these kingdoms every
year, one ship straight to each place. The Gujaratees used to have
large factories in Calicut.
The Cambay merchants make Malacca their chief trading Trade
centre. There used to be a thousand Gujarat merchants in
Malacca, besides four or five thousand Gujarat seamen, who
came and went. Malacca cannot live without Cambay, nor Cam-
bay without Malacca, if they are to be very rich and very pros-
perous. All the clothes and things from Gujarat have trading
value in Malacca and in the kingdoms which trade with Malacca;
for the products of Malacca are esteemed not only in this [part
of the.?] world, but in others, where no doubt they are wanted.
A more detailed description of its merchandise will be found in
the account of Malacca. If Cambay were cut off from trading
with Malacca, it could not live, for it would have no outlet for
its merchandise.
The Gujaratees were better seamen and did more navigating Trade
than the other people of these parts, and so they have larger
ships and more men to man them. They have great pilots and do
a great deal of navigation. The heathen of Cambay — and in
older times the Gujaratees — held that they must never kill any-
one, nor must they have an armed man in their company. If
they were captured and [their captors] wanted to kill them all,
they did not resist. This is the Gujarat law among the heathen.
Now they have many men-at-arms to defend their ships. Before
the channel of Malacca was discovered they used to trade with
Java round the south of the island of Sumatra. They used to go
in between Sunda and the point of Sumatra island and sail to
Grisee (Agraci) whence they took the products of the Moluccas,
The mer-
chants
who come
and start
com-
panies
here for
Malacca
46 TOM^ PIRES
Timor and Banda*, and came back very rich men. It is not a
hundred years since they gave up this route. There are keels,
anchors and other parts of Gujarat ships in Grisee, which they
show, saying that they are left from the time of the Gujaratees.
As the kingdom of Cambay had this trade with Malacca, mer-
chants of the following nations used to accompany the Gujaratees
there in their ships, and some of them used to settle in the place,
sending off the merchandise, while others took it in person, to
wit, Mafaris and people from Cairo, many Arabs, chiefly from
Aden, and with these came Abyssinians, and people from
Ormuz, Kilwa, Malindi, Mogadishu and Mombassa, Persians,
to wit, Rumes, Turkomans, Armenians, Guilans, Khorasans and
men of Shiraz. There are many of these in Malacca; and many
people from the kingdom of the Deccan used to take up their
companies in Cambay. The trade of Cambay is extensive and
comprises cloths of many kinds and of a fair quality (.?)2, rough
clothing, seeds such as nigella, cumin, ameos, fenugreek, roots
like rampion, which they call pachak, and earth like lac which
they call catechu 3, liquid storax and other things of the kind.
* In the Paris MS it is written do ouro, but the Lisbon MS has bamda, and
Ramusio Bandam.
2 After he boos (of a fair quality) the Paris MS has the words em cados, the
meaning of which I cannot find. The two words have been omitted in the
Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
3 Nigella — The word alipiuri used by Pires is the old Portuguese name
alipivri for the seeds of Nigella, small fennel or black cumin — Nigella sativa
Linn. Watt (p. 8i i) says that this plant ‘a native of Southern Europe’, used by
the natives as medicine or a condiment, is ‘extensively cultivated in India for
its seeds’. Burkill (p. 1556), however, comments: ‘Watt states that the
cultivation is extensive in some parts of India, but this is scarcely correct, and
it is rare to find it away from the extreme north-western parts of the country’.
This fully covers Cambay.
Cumin — Pires’ cominhos is the true cumin — Cuminum Cyminum Linn., a
plant more or less cultivated in most provinces of India.
Ameos — Orta (xi) refers to the ameos {dmios or amis in modern Portuguese)
calling them ‘wild cumins’ {cominhos rusticus). This must correspond to the
bishop’s weed, the umbelliferous Ammi majns, which like the cumin belongs
to the tribe Amminea. Ficalho {Coloquios, i, 148) suggests that Orta ‘might
have given this name {ameos) to some Umbelliferae of aromatic seeds, which
are frequent in India’. The word has been omitted in the Lisbon MS and in
Ramusio.
Fenugreek or fenugraec, Pires’ allforua or alforva, is the Trigonella foe-
num graecum Linn. ‘A robust annual herb, wild in Kashmir, the Panjdb and
the Upper Gangetic Plain; cultivated in many parts, particularly in the
CAMBAY
47
They return loaded up with all the rich merchandise of the
Moluccas, Banda and China, and they used to bring a great deal
of gold. It was upon the Gujaratis that it weighed most heavily
when Malacca came into Your Highness’ possession, and it was
they who were responsible for the betrayal of Diogo Lopes de
Sequeira^; and today they sing in the market-places of Malacca
of how the town has had to pay for what the Malayans did on
the advice of the Gujaratis.
higher regions.’ Watt, p. io8i. Orta, xiii. It is also a native plant in
Portugal.
Rampion, Pires’ Rvy pomtiz or ruipontiz (which is also called ruiponto,
rapuncio, raponcio or rapongo in Portuguese), is Campanula Rapunculus Linn.,
a plant with a tuberous esculent root. 'Ruipdnto — Pharmacology. “Raiz do
ponto", which looks like rhubarb, comes from Asia’, says Morais, Diccionario
da Lingua Portugueza, s.v. (Lisbon, 1789). This explains why Pires says that
pachak (pucho, which the transcriber spelt pufha here) is ‘roots like rampion’.
Catechu — There was a time when the cacho or catechu was supposed to
be a natural earth, and as it reached Europe by way of Japan, in the seven-
teenth century it even received the name of Terra Japonica. See note on
catechu, pp. 43-4.
The transcriber of the Lisbon MS perhaps was unable to understand this
piece of Pires’ writing, and simply suppressed what he did not understand.
’ See note pp. 235-6.
[SECOND BOOK]
[CAMBAY TO CEYLON]
[Deccan — Goa — Kanara — Narsinga — Malabar — Ceylon]
[deccan]
W E will describe the great and warlike kingdom of the
Deccan. It is separated from the kingdom of Cambay
along by Maymi or May^, and from the kingdom of
Kharepatan {Cara patanam), and from the country
quern). inland where the king of Narsinga is, and from the kingdom of
Orissa by a narrow inlet, and on the side of Cambay upwards by
the mountains which are between India and Delhi. This king-
dom produces plenty of foodstuffs, and the land is well culti-
vated. It is a larger kingdom than that of Cambay and the people
of the country are better warriors, gallant by nature [like] the
people of the land of Kanara, and the peons are very hard work-
ing. This kingdom contains many white people. It must be two
hundred and fifty years since this kingdom was won from the
heathen by the Rumes and Turks and Persians. Like the kingdom
Seaports. Cambay it has many inland cities and many seaports.
If you sail from Mahim to the kingdorn of Goa the ports in
the kingdom of the Deccan are as follows: Chaul, Dande
(Danda), Mataleni, Dab hoi (Dabull), Sangameshwar(iS'««^f^ar<2),
Kharepatan [Carapatanamy.
* Kelve Mahim.
* In the Lisbon MS these names read as follows: ‘chaull dada mataline/
dabull/ samgisarra/ carepatao/’.
Chaull — Chaul or Cheul is a place of great antiquity, formerly one of the
most important seaports in Western India; still called Port Chaul on the
Admiralty Charts. As Pires says further on, the port of Chaul was already
declining in his time. It is situated on the north side of the wide harbour
formed by the estuary of the Kondulika River or Roha Creek. Recorded on
Rodrigues’ map as chaull.
Danda — There is a place called Dande on the north side of Rajpuri Creek,
in the eastern part of Janjira harbour, which must correspond to Pires’
Danda. On the map published by J. S. King in his History of the Bahmarn
Dynasty {The Indian Antiquary, vol. 28, Bombay, 1899) the place appears as
Danda, but situated on the south side of the creek. Further north on the
48
PLATE XIII
TliC West Coast ol Ind r rm fc^rding to Tom6 Pires (pp. 33-84)
PLATE XIV
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 28) depicting the East Coast of Arabia,
eastern part of the Persian Gulf, West Coast of India, Ceylon and
the Laccadive Islands (p. 520)
^ — 7
1
WteM
sHBHHBhHISKhB
P* WwBWWMtWMBMIKni
DECCAN
49
There are twenty towns in the kingdom of the Deccan, the Principal
ones with the most inhabitants being Bidar {Bider), Bijapur
( Visapor), Cidador, Sholapur (Solapor), Raichur (Rachull), Sagar
(Qagar), Kulbarga {Quellberga), Koyer (Queher), Bayn^.
coast, between Roha Creek and Rajpuri Creek there is another place called
Dande. The name survives also in the village Revadanda, where the fort built
by the Portuguese still exists. Chaul and Revadanda have now spread so much
towards each other that they are more often called Upper Chaul and Lower
Chaul. Castro says that Danda is ‘one of the greatest and most famous rivers
of this coast, being four leagues from Chaul’. Roteiro de Goa a Dio, p. 48.
On the Reinel maps of c. 1517 and c. 1518 Danda appears to the south of
Dabhol, but on all the other early maps it is placed immediately south of
Chaul. Cifardam on L. Homem’s map of 1 554.
Mataleni — This name does not appear in any Portuguese chronicle or map.
Castro (pp. 39-48) refers to three rivers, between Dabhol and Danda, from
south to north, the Quelecim, the Beigoim, and the Cifardam. Cifardam
corresponds to Srivardham or Shrivardham bay, which Castro rightly places
five leagues south of Danda. Quelecim is the Bharia, which he locates seven
leagues north of Dabhol and about one south of Beifoim, saying that it is
exactly in 18 degrees of latitude (correct lat. 17° 56' N). Beigoim is the Savitri
River, the most important of the three, of which he gives an accurate chart,
where Port Bankot now stands. This must correspond to Pires’ Mataleni,
perhaps the river Mandaba, placed by Barbosa between Danda and Dabhol
and identified by Dames (i, 164) with the Savitri River. Mandaba does not
appear in any chronicle or map.
Sangizara — The Cinguigar of Barbosa and Zamgizara of Castro, is the
Sangameshwar or Shastri Joygad River.
Carapatanam — Kharepatan. Castro (pp. 23-31) gives a detailed descrip-
tion and an accurate chart of the Rio de Carapatao which corresponds
exactly to the entrance of Vijaydurg or Vijayadurg harbour, at the entrance
of the Vaghotan River. He says that ‘ It is the noblest and best sheltered river
of all those which flow on this coast of India, and its excellence is such that
there are not enough words to praise it’. According to the West Coast of India
Pilot, Vijaydurg is today a port of little importance. It must be related to the
Arapatam referred to by Barbosa. Dames (i, 169) took the names Arapatam
and Muruary as meaning two sorts of pulses which he tries to connect with
two Indian plant names, arburrah and mohri or mahasurt. Dalgado (ii, 455,
507) also says that Arapatao is the arburrah or the garden pea, Pisum sativum
Linn., and t\\.zx Muruary is mulayari, the Malayalam word for ‘seed of bamboos,
which is used in several parts as a foodstuff’. Although the defective punc-
tuation of the 1821 Portuguese edition (p. 293) may justify this confusion, it
seems more likely that Barbosa refers the words Arapatan and Muruary to
‘other small places which are also sea ports’, and not to ‘pulses’. The name
still survives in the village Kharepatan, on the left bank of the river, twenty
miles from its mouth.
‘ In the Lisbon MS these names read as follows: ‘badir vesapor ^idapor
solapor Rachull cugar/ quell/ berguaquelher bain.’ Bider — Bidar, in the State
of Hyderabad. Both Barbosa and Barros mention Bider. Visapor — Bijapur.
Bisapor in Barros, Visapor in Castanheda. Solapor — Sholapur, in Bombay
H.C.S. I.
D
TOME FIRES
Name of
the king
and the
chief
lords.
50
The king is called Sultan Mahatnud Xaa. Next in rank to the
king are Idalhan, Niza Malmulc, Cupall Mullc, Hodanan, and
Miliqui DasturK These four lords, and those who succeed to
their titles, govern the kingdom. This Idalhan is a Turk from
Turkey. His father was a slave of this king’s father, and as the
king considered him to be a man of worth he made him ^abayo^.
This name of fabayo is a Siamese name like captain of the king’s
guard who governs half the kingdom. The man who holds this
office is called the fabayo. The official fabayo holds a vital
position in the kingdom. The one who has this dignity is a very
great lord and he ministers to the king in all that he needs. This
office was held by the father of its present holder.
The former fabayo was a knight of great esteem, and they say
that he took part in forty pitched battles and was defeated in
Province. Rachull — Raichur, in Hyderabad. Qagar — Sagar, in Gulbarga
District, Hyderabad. Seguer in Barros. Quellberga — Kulbarga or Gulbarga,
in Hyderabad. Calbergd, in Barros. Queher — Koyer or Kohir, in Bidar Dis-
trict, Hyderabad. Querhif, in Barros. Bayn — Bhaja, a small old town in Poona
District, Bombay? Or Badami, another small old town in Bajapur District,
Bombay? Vay, in Barros.
I Mahamud xaa — Mahmud Shah, Bahmani king of the Deccan. Idalham
or Idalcam — Adil Khan, meaning ‘The righteous Lord’. The usual form
among the Portuguese chroniclers was Idalcao, Adilchan, Hidalcao and
Hidalchan\ but Orta (x) calls him Adelham, which seems more like Pires’
Idalham. This title was extended by the Portuguese to all the kings of the
Mohammedan dynasty of Bijapur. Niza malmulc — Nizam-ul-Mulk, ‘The
Regulator of the State.’ Barros (ii, v, 2) gives the names of the principal
‘captains’ of Mahmud Shah, who held power in the Deccan when the
Portuguese came to India, among them the four mentioned by Pires. This
one is called Nizamaluco by Barros as well as by the other chroniclers.
Cupall mullc — Kutb-ul-Mulk,‘The Pole-Star of the State’; called Cotama-
luco by Barros and Cotalmaluco by Orta. Hodanan or Hodan an han. Perhaps
Kwaja Mukaddan, the Coje Mocadam of Barros, and the Mohadum Coja of Orta.
Miliqui dastur or Milic Dastur — Malik Dastur or Malik Dinar Dastur-i
Mamalik, o Abexi capado (the Abyssinian eunuch) of Barros, later referred
to by Pires as an ‘Abyssinian slave of the king’. In the Lisbon MS these
names appear rather mixed up: ‘mamedxa/ idalham niga/ mall malet/
odanam/ melique destur/’.
^ Qabaio. There has been a good deal of speculation about the origin and
meaning of this title Qabaio, or, as more often spelt by the Portuguese
chroniclers, Sabaio. Barros (ii, v, i) says that when the Portuguese ‘came into
India the lord of this city of Goa was a Moor named Soay, captain of the
King of the Deccan, whom we commonly call Sabayo’. Dames (i, 172-4) has
already dealt extensively with this question.
DECCAN
51
thirty and victorious in ten. Shortly after his death, his son
called himself Idallcaniy which means captain general of the
whole kingdom, and seized the king, and the king has to live
where the Idalcam wishes and is more or less a prisoner. How-
ever, when the Idalcam sees the Sultan Mahamud Xaa, he does
show him a certain amount of deference. Idalcam took this
bold step against the wishes of the four and of the king, because
all the white people in the kingdom came under his jurisdic-
tion; and because he was a foreigner and a Turk and held this
office, most of the mercenaries came to his support. With the
exception of Bidar, all the towns in the kingdom are for the
most part under the Idalcam! s jurisdiction. As long as this man
was ^abaio, these other lords were as powerful and important
as he; but when he called himself Idalcam they all came under
him; and, as this offended them, they are always at war, as we
shall see later. All the seaports in this kingdom belong to the
Qabaio, except Chaul and Dande.
The Lord of Chaul and Dande is called Niza mall mulec. The Lord
His father was a Turk by birth. He was one of the king of the Chaul
Deccan’s slaves and became a great lord, and holds many places
inland. He has a thousand white warriors from Persia and a
thousand horsemen.
This Cupall mulec is a great lord. Others call him Cutell Cupal
mamaluqo. He is a native of the kingdom of the Deccan and was
not a slave. He is a man of great worth and greatly esteemed
in the land. They say that he has nearly one thousand five
hundred mounted white men.
This man is a native of the kingdom, like the above, and has Hodau
as much land and people.
This Milic Dastur is an Abyssinian slave of the king, and Milic
almost as important as each of these. His land borders on
the Narsinga frontier, and he lives in Kulbarga where he has a
garrison. The ^abaio took this city from him, and now they are
at war.
When the above four lords join forces in agreement they have
between twelve and fifteen thousand mounted men, counting
natives as well as white men. These four have joined together
against the Qabaio. The Qabaio, who is now Idalcam^ has as
52
TOME FIRES
many men as they, and they are continually at war with one
Fol. 1 32V. another. The pay in this country is better than any in these |
parts. They are sometimes badly paid. There are also many
heathen natives and many esteemed Brahmans. Whenever a
heathen of the country dies, it is the custom for his wife, if he
has one, to burn herself alive, so that she may keep her husband
company wherever he may be. If she does not do this, not only
is she herself dishonoured, but all her relatives also; and some-
times the wives are not very willing and their relatives and the
Brahmans persuade them to burn themselves, so as not to depart
from the custom.
The kingdom of the Deccan is a land of chivalry. It must have
about thirty thousand mounted men, besides countless foot
soldiers. Those white people whom we call Rumes used generally
to come to this kingdom and to Goa to earn wages and honour.
This king used to bestow names like miliques'^, for instance, so-
and-so milic, and the most honoured name is han or carF' and
they use to come to win these titles. The cans are greatly
esteemed and honoured here — I mean ca.es the plural of can, and
not dogs [caes in Portuguese]. The people of this kingdom are
full of pride and presumption. The king is addicted to opium
and women, and spends all his time in this way. And his Idalcam
is no less so. The king must be about forty years old and the
Idalcam thirty. They are both fat men, and given to every form
of vice. There must be about two hundred Turks, Rumes and
Arabs in the kingdom of the Deccan, and from ten to twelve
thousand Persian men-at-arms. The man who has the most
white men in this kingdom is the most powerful. This kingdom
must possess about fifty elephants, and it has Arab and Persian
horses of unbelievable value.
Food- There is an abundance of rice in the kingdom of the Deccan, and
stuffs. some wheat and meat. There is a great deal of areca and betel.
Trade in The Deccan used to do a great deal of trade, chiefly in Dabhol.
the It was a rich and honoured port of call, a good port, with many
DTccan. ^ ships; and Your Highness treated these ports so ill that they
1 Mjlique or Mjlic — Malik, which actually meant king, but was used as
meaning ruler or lord.
2 Han or Can — Khan, which means prince.
DECCAN
53
were destroyed, and Diu, from being a wilderness, became great,
through Your Highness’ favour. It still has great mechants and
carries on trade, but not the tenth part of what it used to do.
These used to be ports of call between Aden and Malacca. They
used to deal in all kinds of merchandise in large ships belonging
to many merchants. These were good halfway ports, set in
fertile country with plenty of water. Most of the horses imported
into the kingdom of the Deccan were landed here. These were
rich ports, and the king of the Deccan and his (^ahaio and Nazi-
mall mulec had a right to the dues, and this enabled them to pay
good wages; but now that the Captain-Generab has made over
this trade to the civilized kingdom of Goa, the kingdom of the
Deccan will not be able to maintain its position much longer.
The way is open for it to be lost beyond recall, or for Goa to
become the greatest place in the worlds. Time shows all these
things as it passes; and there is reason to believe that it should
be so, since it is plain beyond contradiction that there used to be
a great deal of very rich trade in Dab hoi. The port of Chaul was
renowned throughout Asia, and so was Dabhol — Dabhol not so
much, on account of the water there, which is brackish. The
followers of Mohammed are apprehensive. These people who
were so prosperous are watching their wealth fade away (?).
This kingdom of the Deccan produces the following merchan- Merchan
dise: calicos — cloths in white and countless colours — and bea-
tilhaSy which the Moors and Klings generally use for their
turbans. They make enough of these two things to furnish the
world. They also make black beads in this kingdom which are
good for Diua^ and Abyssinia. Most of the betel, which is called
* Afonso de Albuquerque.
* Time has indeed proved Pires to have been right in his prophecy — as far
as the Orient was concerned.
3 Dina — This single word is repeated further on (p. 84). It might mean
Diu, which Barbosa calls ‘a great town named by the Malabars Deuixa'
(Port. ed. p. 282), and which appears as Diuxa in Ramusio’s translation.
Yule says that the town stands on an island, whence its name, from Skt.
ducipa. Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Diu. But it is more likely that Diua may mean
the Maidive islands, whose etymology has been explained in so many ways,
although it probably embodies the same Sanskrit word dvipa. Further on
Pires calls the Maidive Islands quite clearly Ilhas de diva. See note p. 82.
In the Lisbon MS it is also Diua, but Ramusio transformed it into Adem.
54 TOME FIRES
folio Indo\ goes from here to Cambay, Ormuz and Aden,
although that from Goa is better. As the ports in this king-
dom were conveniently situated, the merchandise from all
over Asia and Europe was to be found there; and the port of
Chaul was very famous, but it is already on the decline.
[go a]
Fol. i33r. Now our road takes us to the magnificent kingdom of Goa —
the key to the First and Second India. On the sea-coast it is
separated from the Deccan by Kharepatan, the chief river in
(Guoa). India; on the Honawar side it has Cintacora\ and inland it is
bounded by the kingdom of the Deccan and the kingdom of
Narsinga. The language which is spoken in this kingdom is
Konkani. The kingdom of Goa was always esteemed as the best
of the king of Narsinga’s possessions, for it was as important as
it was prosperous. The people of the Deccan won part of this
kingdom from him, and afterwards the old Qabaio, father of the
present one, won the rest of it from the heathens. It is forty-five
years since the (fahaio took over this kingdom, and as long as it
formed part of the kingdom of the Deccan, Goa was the head of
the whole kingdom of the Deccan and Goa. The language of this
kingdom of Goa does not resemble that of the Deccan, nor that
of Narsinga, but is a separate language. The people of this
kingdom are strong, prudent and very hard-working, both on
land and sea.
Seaports. Next to Kharepatan along the sea coast Goa has Devgarh
{Damdriuar), Banda, Old Goa, New Goa, Liga (Aliga), Ancoll,
Pale (Vpale), Sal River {Rijo de Sail), Cape Ramas {Ponta
* Fires repeats the same assertion later on, when describing Bachian
(Pacham) island, and in his letter of 1516 Barbosa says also — ‘This betel we
call folio Indio’ (Port. ed. p. 292), a misconception which passed unnoticed by
Dames, who simply translated folio Indio as ‘the Indian leaf’ (i, 168). This
mistake was wide-spread in the sixteenth century, and Orta himself fell into
it until he went to India, as he explains in the Last Colloquy. Then he
corrected the error, showing that betel is one thing, and ‘folio indo’ or ‘folium
indum’ something quite different. There is betel or Piper Betele Linn., and
there is Folio Indo, which is the Cinnamomum Tamala Fries, ‘cassia lignea’ or
‘cassia cinnamon’, the bark and leaves (known also as folia malabathri) of
which are applied in medicine, etc. See note p. 219.
GOA
55
Darrama), Cimtacora, Anjediva {AmjadiuaY . Between these ports
there are rivers, which ships used to — and still do — navigate.
* In the Lisbon MS these names read as follows: ‘damda/ mujbamda/ guoa
a velha/ & a nova alimga/ amola/ o Rio do Sail/ apomta da Rama/
9imta9ora/ amgediua/.’
Damdriuar — Devgad or Devgarh harbour. Three leagues south of Cara-
patao, Castro (pp. 22—3) places the Rio de Tamaraa, with ‘a very beautiful bay
nearly round shaped’, which corresponds to Devgarh harbour, or Pires’
Damdriuar. About ten miles inland, on the right bank of the river that
debouches at Devgarh, there is a village called Tamhara. The map of c. 1510
has dendbasya, between dabull and goa. One of the ports mentioned by Castro
may be the Muruary of Barbosa (see note p. 49), perhaps Pires’ Damdriuar.
Banda — To the south, the only important port before Goa is Vengurla,
sixteen miles east-south-eastward of which is the inland town of Banda.
Banda is also referred to as a seaport by Barbosa and Barros, and appears as
bamda on some Portuguese maps, always south of Goa.
Guoa velha — Old Goa.
Guoa noua — New Goa or Pangim. As early as 1433—4 Ibn Batuta wrote:
‘There are in the island (of Sdndabur, or Goa) two cities, one ancient built by
the pagans; the second built by the Mussulmans when they conquered the
island the first time.’ Cf. Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Sindabtir.
Aliga — This must be the Kalinadi or Liga River, called by Barros ‘rio
Aliga de Cintacora’ (i, ix, i), but coming immediately after Goa, it seems to
be misplaced.
Ancoll — Suggests the town of Ankola, in a creek thirteen miles south-east
of the mouth of the Liga or Kalinadi River. Ankola is the Ancola which
Castanheda (iii, xxxiii) says lay four leagues from Anjediva, and which is
mentioned by other chroniclers. Ancola appears between cintacala and mergeo
in D. Homem’s atlas of 1558. But there is also, after Goa, on the south-east
coast of Mormugao peninsula, a place called Colla or Culua, at the mouth of
a small river in Colla Bay, which the Portuguese call Mar de Colla. Perhaps
the Ancoll of Pires corresponds to the ‘tanadaria of Colator', a seaport in the
Goa District, mentioned by Barros (ii, v, 2).
Vpale — There is a small place called Pale, Palee or Paula on the eastern side
of Colla Bay. As all these ports are indicated in succession, from north to
south, it seems that Ancoll indeed corresponds to Colla, though it may be
that there is some confusion with Ankola and the misplacing of Aliga.
Rijo DE SALL — Sal River, sixteen miles south-east of Pale. It appears on
some early Portuguese maps.
PoNTA DARRAMA — Cabo de Rama or Cape Ramas, four and a half miles
south-west of Sal River. It appears also on several early Portuguese maps.
CiMTACORA — Castanheda says that ‘one league from the island of Anjediva,
at the mouth of a great river of fresh water, there was a great fortress of the
Moors called Cintacora’ (ii, xiii). Almost all the chroniclers refer to Cintacora
as a fortified place or as a river, very near Anjediva island. Barros (i, viii, x)
calls this river Aliga de Cintacora and refers to the origin of the fortress. The
river is the Kalinadi, formerly the Liga River. ‘On the northern side of the
river, just within the entrance, on the summit of a 218-foot (66-4m) hill, are
the remains of an old fort, and on a hill about a quarter of a mile eastward are
^6 TOM^: PIRES
And because these things belong to the kingdom of Goa, we
will only speak of Goa itself. On the mainland it had cities and
towns, many tanadarias'- yielding large revenues and having
highly cultivated lands, which are still in the hands of the
Moors; but since the great city of Goa, which is the key to all
[the rest], is now in the power and service of the most high God,
it will not be long before the remainder follow it.
In the same way as doors are the defence of houses, so are sea-
ports the help, defence and main protection of provinces and
kingdoms; and once these are taken and subjugated, the pro-
vinces and kingdoms are put to great suffering, and if they have
quarrels among themselves or with their neighbours, they are
immediately lost because they have no help, especially as these
kingdoms had no other protection but the city and port of Goa,
which was their principal thing. Goa used to be a haunt of
thieves, Turks, Rumes and people who die opposing our faith.
Goa was preparing to inflict great losses on the Christians, but
God’s judgement turned the loss upon them, for there is no
doubt that the Moors groaned when Goa was taken. Goa was a
place so arranged that in the space of a year the Moors could
easily get together armadas there, such as they could not get in
Suez in twenty.
Who can doubt that in the rout of Goa, ships were taken
which the Moors had made ready to fight against us, and which
afterwards went to Banda to bring cargoes of mace for us? The
judgement of our Lord is incomprehensible, and let every one
the ruins of another fort. The town of Sadashivgarh (Sadashivgad) is situated
close northward of these hills.’ West Coast of India Pilot. The whole of this
place is still called Chitakuli or Chitakul which corresponds to the Cintacora
of the Portuguese. This must be the Cintabor of the Medici sea atlas (1351)
or the Chintabor of the Catalan map (1375—81), which rather perplexed Yule
{Cathay, iv, 65, etc.) and Dames (i, 171-2, 182). It already appeared as Rio
de cimtacolla, south of the ilhas degoa, on Rodrigues’ map of the west coast of
India, as Cymtaquola on P. Reinel’s map of c. 1517, and Cimtacola on other
early maps.
Amjadiua — Anjediva Island, ajadiua on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 28).
' Tanadaria. The post held by the tanadar, actually meaning ‘chief of local
police’, in Hindustani. The word was adopted by the Portuguese in India who
used it in a wider sense, for the military authority of a small town, or
receiver of revenues and customs. Tanadar or Thanadar is still in use in
British India in the civil sense.
GOA
57
take good note that the Moors suffered a greater loss in Goa than
they will suffer when they lose Aden. Goa not only curbs the
kingdom of the Deccan, but it stifles that of Cambay too. The
Moors have a bad neighbour in Goa. Just as the Moors used to
go on conquering kingdoms, they are now losing them. A king-
dom without ports is a house without portals. It is Our Lord
who decrees the downfall of Mohammed, and John the writer^
is rapidly bringing it about. The time has already come. Let no
one in India count on the Moors now, except on those who
plough the hills. The kingdom of Goa is the most important in
India, although they may not wish it to be so. It is civilized,
having famous orchards and water. It is the coolest place in
India, and it is the most plentiful in foodstuffs; so that it used to
be customary among the Rumes and the white people to make a
practice of going to the kingdom of Goa to enjoy the shade and
the groves of trees and to savour the sweet betel. There is no
doubt that the betel in Goa is better than that anywhere else,
mild and pleasant to the taste and highly prized, and it is usually
from Goa that betel is exported to Aden, Ormuz and Cambay.
It has more and better areca or avelana India^ than any other
place. Cargoes of rice are taken from here, and great trains of
oxen loaded with merchandise used to come in to Goa from
very distant kingdoms in the interior. And if these things
happened in the past, how much more reason is there to believe
that from now on Goa will become a great port of call, greater
than there has ever been; and the merchants will rejoice under
our administration more than they did under the Moors.
The kingdom of Goa always had the advantage over Chaul. It Fol. 133V.
traded lavishly. It had many merchants of all nationalities,
people of large means. Its trade was large. It always had a great
many ships. It has a good port, and not only that, but it was
especially suited to the business of raising armadas which was
carried on there, on account of the wood and of the craftsmen,
and also because it had plentiful supplies and was very strong,
and because there were always a large number of white people
living there, full of pride, and not without cause, for the kingdom
' St. John, the writer of the Apocalypse?
^ The nut of the Areca catechu Linn., areca-nut or betel-nut, was called by
the Portuguese avela da India or avelana Indiae.
TOME FIRES
58
of Goa lies in the heart of all India. Great festivals used to be cele-
brated here in honour of the profane Mohammed, and these have
now been changed to the name of Jesus Christ. The city of Goa is
as strong as Rhodes. It has four fortresses, very richly constructed,
in the necessary places, to injure the name of Mohammed.
Trade. They used to bring horses to Goa from all the kingdoms in
Arabia Petrea, from Ormuz, from Persia and from the kingdom
of Cambay; and from Goa they were sent to the kingdoms of the
Deccan and of Narsinga. After Goa was taken from the Moors
Narsinga got its horses through Bhatkal. And Goa also collected
all the merchandise of those parts and they took back calico, fine
muslin, rice, areca, betel and many pardaos and oraos, because
horses here are worth a great deal. A horse may be worth as
much as eight hundred pardaos, coins worth three hundred and
thirty-five reis each*. [Goa] used to receive many spices and
quantities of merchandise from these other parts.
The kingdom of Goa had a large number of ships which used
to sail to many different places; and the Goanese ships were
esteemed and favoured everywhere, because the Moors had all
their power in these parts, in the kingdom of Goa. The seamen
who sailed the ships were natives of the country, because the
kingdom of Goa produces good seamen who can stand hard
work. And thus with men from Goa sailing to other places, and
people from the other places sailing to Goa, its trade was great,
so that large revenues were derived from the dues on the
merchandise and anchorages, and also from the land dues and
the tanadarias. I have often heard it said that Goa and the sur-
rounding district yielded four hundred thousand pardaos a year
from the duties on everything that came into the port, together
with its own products. And according to the run of things, this
seems to be correct.
Heathens There are a great many heathens in this kingdom of Goa,
of this more than in the kingdom of the Deccan. Some of them are very
kingdom.
* Pardaos — Popular name among the Portuguese for gold or silver coins of
Western India worth 360 reis and 300 reis respectively. The 335 reis indicated
by Pires as the value of the pardao in his time would correspond to about
thirteen shillings today, with four or five times its purchasing power. Oraos —
Coins also called horaos or oras by the Portuguese, equivalent to pagodes
{Hobson- Jobson, s.v. Pagoda c) or gold, pardau (Dalgado, s.v. Ord).
GOA
59
honoured men with large fortunes; and almost the whole king-
dom lies in their hands, because they are natives and possess the
land and they pay the taxes. Some of them are noblemen with
many followers and lands of their own, and are persons of great
repute, and wealthy, and they live on their estates, which are
very gay and fresh. The heathens of the kingdom of Goa surpass
those of Cambay. They have beautiful temples of their own in
this kingdom; they have priests or Brahmans of many kinds.
There are some very honoured stocks among these Brahmans.
Some of them will not eat anything which has contained blood
or anything prepared by the hand of another. These Brahmans
are greatly revered throughout the country, particularly among
the heathen. Like those of Cambay, the poor ones serve to take
merchandise and letters safely through the land, because the
rich ones rank as great lords. They are clever, prudent, learned
in their religion. A Brahman would not become a Mohammedan
[even] if he were made a king.
No torment will make the people of the kingdom of Goa con-
fess to an)rthing that they have done. They can bear a great deal,
and when they are being tortured with different tortures they
will die rather than confess anything they have made up their
minds to keep to themselves. And the pretty women of Goa
dress well, and those who dance do so better than any others in
this part of the world.
It is mostly the custom in this kingdom of Goa for every Fol. i34r.
heathen wife to burn herself alive on the death of her husband.
Among themselves they all rate this highly, and if they do not
want to burn themselves to death their relatives are dishonoured
and they rebuke those who are ill-disposed towards the sacrifice
and force them to burn themselves. And those who will not
bum themselves on any consideration become public prosti-
tutes and earn money for the upkeep and constmction of the
temples in their district, and they die in this way. Each of these
heathen has one wife by law. Many Brahmans make a vow of
chastity and keep it for ever.
In the other ports in the kingdom they load quantities of rice,
salt, betel and areca, in which they trade. Each of these rivers
has towns, far from the water because they are afraid; and those
6o
TOM^ FIRES
who know them well navigate there, because if they do not know
them well they are lost. They are under the authority of the
^abayo, with captains who collect the revenues from the land,
and some of them have a garrison of horsemen because they are
constantly at war with the lands of the province of Narsinga.
[kanaka]
Fol. 12 5v. Now you are in the last kingdom of the First India, which is
Kingdoms called the province of the Kanarese {Canarijsy. It is bounded on
in the land one side by the kingdom of Goa, and by Anjediva {Amgadiva),
ofKanara ^nd on the Other by Middle India or Malabar India. Inland is
(terra •
Canarjm). of Narsinga, whose language is Kanarese, which is
different from that of the Deccan and of the kingdom of Goa.
There are two kings along the sea-coast and a few small regions.
They are all heathens and vassals of the king of Narsinga. They
are a civilized people, warriors, and practised in the use of arms
both on sea and land. The land we are now describing is the only
one remaining to the king of Narsinga of those he possessed in
the First India. It is a cultivated land, with important towns.
Seaports. In the land of the Kanarese from Anjediva to Mangalore
[there are] Mirjan (Mjrgeu), Honawar (Onor), Bhatkal (Bati-
cala), Basrur {Bafalor), Baira Vera, Barkur (Bacanor), Vdi-
piranF, Mangalore (Mamgallor). All these are trade ports. From
I Canarijs or Canarins are the inhabitants of Kanara, but, according to
Dalgado (j.®.), the Portuguese erroneously designated the people of Goa by
this name. Dames says, without much ground, I consider, that the term is
applied to the class we call Eurasians, and that the Anglo-Indian term Kardm
is probably derived from Canarim.
^ In the Lisbon MS these names read as follows: ‘mergeo batecala bacalor
baira/ vera/ bacanor vydeperao magalu.’
Mjrgeu — Modern Mirjan, at the mouth of the Gangawali River, north of
Honawar. Mergeu in Barbosa, the Portuguese chroniclers and Reinel’s map
of c. 1517, Mergueo on Reinel’s map of c. 1518, and Mergeo on later maps.
Onor — Honavar or Honawar. Omitted in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
Honor in Barbosa and Onor in Portuguese chronicles and maps.
Baticala — Bhatkal. Baticalla on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 28).
Bacalor — Corresponds to Basrur, a village in Coondapur, or Kundapur,
in south Kanara District, situated to the south of a large estuary into which
three rivers run. The ruins of an old Portuguese fort are still there. Bragalor
in Barbosa, Barcelor and Bracelor in the Portuguese chronicles and maps.
KANARA
6l
Honawar and Mirjan to Anjediva belongs to the king of Ger-
soppa (Garfopa) who neighbours on Goa [and is] for the king of
Narsinga; Bhatkal, with Basnir and other inland towns, has a
king; the other four ports have captains. They are all vassals of
the king of Narsinga and pay their revenues to him.
The king of Gersoppa is an important man, with many
mounted men — up to three thousand, so they say. Gersoppa
stretches five leagues up the Honawar river. Inland there is a
small, cool town, where Timoja^ lives. He used to live in Hona-
war, because he was related to the king of Gersoppa. He is often
at the king of Narsinga’s court, and is his obedient vassal. This
river of Honawar is thickly populated, and has ships, out of
which Timoja made the armada with which he went pillaging
from here to Cape Guardafui, where he took a great deal of
booty. This Timoja was feared by the seamen and helped the
king of Gersoppa.
The king of Bhatkal is a Kanarese heathen and a greater king Bhatkal
than those of Honawar and Gersoppa. His kingdom extends a
long way inland. The port of Bhatkal comes next in importance ^ '
to Goa and Chaul, and has a great deal of trade. It is the port
which serves the kingdom of Narsinga, and through which the
Baira Vera — As Pires gives all these names in geographical order, it seems
that Baira Vera should be between Bagalor (Basrur) and Bacanor (Barkur, on
the Sitanadi River). But between the mouths of the Coondapur estuary and
the Sitanadi River there is no break in the coast line that could be called a
port. There is the small port of Baindur, at the entrance of the Baindur River,
but that lies between Bhatkal and Basrur. Bacanor corresponds to the village
of Barkur, on the north side of an estuary of several rivers, the more important
being the Sitanadi on the north, and the Swarnanadi on the south. About one
mile south of Barkur, between the two rivers, lies the village of Brahmawar,
and it is possible that this may be Pires’ Baira Vera, perhaps the Barrauerrao
placed by Castanheda (ii, xvi) between Bacanor and Baticald.
Bacanor — The old village of Barkur, in Kanarese, the traditional capital of
Taluva {Imp. Gaz. of India, s.v.) corresponds to the Malayalam Fakanur or
Vakkanur, the Bacanor of all Portuguese chronicles and maps.
Vdipiram — Udipi, the principal town near the river, lies inland, about
two and a half miles from Malpe or Mulpi, which is at the entrance of Udiya-
vara Hole (Malpe River), about thirty miles north of Mangalore. It must
be Vdebarrdo, a ‘very large and good port’, that Castanheda (il, xvi) places
near Mangalore.
* Timoja was a pirate, later employed by Albuquerque who appointed him
bailiff {Aguazit) of Goa in 1510. He proved unfaithful and before his death in
15 1 1 joined forces with the Adil Khan.
62
TOM^ PIRES
horses come. The city has many merchants, both heathens and
Moors. It is a great port of call with many merchants and is a
large port. The king is always inland. He has made Damj, a
Chetti, governor of the heathens in his kingdom, as he has the
most property and is a great merchant; and the governor of the
Moorish people is Caizar, a Moorish eunuch who was a servant
of Cojatar^, the one of Ormuz. There are Moors of all nations in
this city, which used to be very great before the capture of Goa
by the Captain General, and which is now already of less
importance.
Bhatkal used to be the most important of all the ports in the
kingdoms of Kanara, on account of its many merchants, and
many horses from all parts were landed here, and much other
merchandise. These horses were bought for the kingdom of
Narsinga, and heavy dues were paid on them. The merchants
returned from this land of Kanara with quantities of the best
rice there is in this part of the world, that is giragal which is the
finest and whitest and most expensive and considered the best;
after this comes chambafal and after chamba^al comes the
pacharil from Goa and the kingdom of the Deccan^. They also
took back iron and a great deal of sugar which there is in this
country, and many sugar preserves which are made in Bhatkal;
these [were products] of the land. And many of the merchants
from Malabar used to go there so that its trade was of great
account. This is the most important possession the king of
Narsinga has in Kanara.
As for Baira Vera, Barkur, Vdipiram and Mangalore, they are
all ports for ships and merchants, who trade with Cambay and
with the kingdoms of Goa and the Deccan and Ormuz, taking
the products of the country and bringing others [in exchange].
There are important captains in these ports, with garrisons of
Fol. i26r. men. Their revenues are paid to the king of Narsinga. ] The
king derives large revenues from this country of Kanara, both
from the seaports and from the land, and he has fortresses, such
* Cqjatar or Coje A tar — Khwaja Attar, wazir of Ormuz under the Sheikh
Ismail.
2 Many early Portuguese writers refer to these three kinds of Indian rice.
Pires’ description is very accurate. Dalgado (^.z). Arroz) deals at length with
the several kinds of rice in India.
NARSINGA
63
as they use, on the sea coast, but the most powerful fortresses
are formed by the mouths of the rivers. The whole country is
well cultivated, large, and good. It is very productive and has
many people, both mounted and on foot. It has much betel and
areca. The Kanara country has many large and important pray-
ing temples. There are many Brahmans of different kinds and
orders, some of them chaste and some of them not. They are
in the habit of burning the women as they do in the kingdom of
Goa in the same way as is told of the other heathen.
These provinces are [as follows]: Dacanis of the kingdom of
the Deccan; Konkani of the kingdom of Goa; Kanarese of the
kingdom of Narsinga. Each one has its own separate origin. And
because these lands belong to the king of Narsinga, I decided to
deal with the kingdom of Narsinga here, as it would have been
as convenient to talk about him when describing the Choro-
mandel coast, where he is a greater lord. And because he rules
here I will say a little now and I will tell the rest when I am
describing Choromandel.
[narsinga]
The kingdom of Narsinga^ is large and very important. It is
bordered on one side by the kingdom of the Deccan and Goa,
and that part is Kanarese, the chief city of which is Vijayanagar
(Bizanaguar), where the king is in residence. On the Ganges
side, where the river flows into the sea it marches with part of
the dominions of the kingdom of Bengal and with the kingdom of
Orissa, and inland it is bounded by the mountains of Delhi and
’ Narsinga, Bisnagar or Bisnaga, is the name applied by the Portuguese —
as similar forms were applied by many other Europeans after them, such as
Beejanugger, Bidjanagar, Bichenegher or Bijanagher — in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries to a large kingdom in Southern India. Bisnagar or
Bisnaga is a corruption of Vijayanagara, the name of a dynasty that reigned
until about 1487. The capital of the kingdom was the city of Vijayanagar,
founded in 1336, the ruins of which still exist in the Bellary District, Madras,
preserved by the British Government. In 1487 the dynasty of Vijayanagar
was replaced by Narasinha, a prince who reigned till 1508. When the Portu-
guese first arrived in India they called that part of the country the kingdom of
Narsinga, a name derived from that of its actual ruler.
64 TOlVli PIRES
on the ocean side by the provinces of Malabar and Choromandel
and Benua Quilim}.
In older times the kingdom of Narsingawas much greater than
it is now and embraced almost the whole of the Deccan as far as
Bengal, including Orissa and all the maritime provinces. Now it
is not so big because^ the Deccan, Goa, Malabar and Orissa have
[each a] king; but still it is large. With the exception of the
kingdom of Delhi, this is the largest province in these parts,
and, they say, in India.
The king is a heathen of Kanara, and on the other hand he
is a Kling; in his courts the language is mixed, but his natural
speech is Kanarese. This King is a warrior and he often goes
into the field with more than forty thousand mounted men and a
large number on foot. He must have five hundred elephants, two
hundred of which are for war^. He is always at war, sometimes
with Orissa, sometimes with the Deccan and sometimes inside
his own country. He has great captains and many mercenaries.
When he rests it is in Vijaynagar, a city of twenty thousand in-
habitantss, which lies between two mountain ranges. The houses
there are not usually very much ornamented. The king’s houses
or palaces are large and well built, and the king has a good
following of noblemen and horsemen. He has great lords with
^ Choromandel was the designation generally given by the Portuguese to
the east coast of India, from Ceylon northwards to the Kistna River in the
present Madras Residency. According to Dalgado (i, 313; ii, 484) the right
spelling is Choromandel, as written by Pires and Barbosa (though the latter
prefers Choramdndel and Yule Coromandel), the ch being pronounced as in
‘church’. Pires does not give a special description of Choromandel anywhere
in the Suma. Further on, dealing with Bengal he mentions five ports, from
Cultarey (Nellore?) to Negapatam, ‘all these ports in the Bonuaquelim, land of
Narsinga’. See note p. 92. Dealing with the Malacca trade he refers to
twelve ‘ports of the coast of Choromandel’ from Caile (Old Kayal) to Pulicat.
See notes pp. 81 and 271-2. However, in his letter of 27 Jan. 1516, Pires says
that 'Choromandell is from the shoals (of Child.) to Cunjmeyra (Pondicherry)’.
^ In the Paris MS this word reads que (that); but in the Lisbon MS it is
porque (because), and similarly in Ramusio. The transcriber of the Paris MS
left out the/)or oi porque, making the sentence unintelligible.
3 The Paris MS has arte (art). But the Lisbon MS says corte (court), and
similarly in Ramusio.
* The Lisbon MS says 300,000 mounted men and 800 elephants. Ramusio
agrees with the Paris MS.
5 The Lisbon MS says 50,000 inhabitants. Ramusio agrees with the Paris
MS.
MALABAR
65
him and he is held in great respect. There are a thousand girl
entertainers in his court, and four or five thousand men of the
same profession. These are Klings and not Kanarese, because
the natives of this province of Kalinga {TalingoY are more
graceful and more apt in mimicry than those of other parts.
Many of these people are scattered from here all over the three
Indias, and I will tell more about them in the description of his
other dominion.
As the First India ends at Mangalore in the land of Kanarese, Middle
you are now entering into the Second or Middle India, which
begins at Manjeshwaram {Mayciram), the first port in Malabar,
and ends at the river Ganges on the Bengal frontier. And the
present account of this land will be divided into two parts: in the
first part you will be told about the land of Malabar, how large
it is, how many ports it has where there are ships, how many
kings it has, what customs the people have, and who is the chief
person in the province, and you will also be told about the trade
in Malabar and about the number of ships there are there.
In the second part^ you will hear about the king of Narsinga
and his country, about the people with whom he fights, what
horsemen he has, and something about his habits, and also the
extent of the kingdom, with some account of the trade there is
in his ports also.
And then we must deal with the kingdom of Orissa or Odia^, Fol. i26v.
and our Second or Middle India will have been as far as possible
described.
[malabar]
The province of Malabar begins at Manjeshwaram {May- Province
cera), a port belonging to the king of Bisnagar, which neighbours
* Talingo, Telinga, Telingana or Kalinga, is a group of Telugu-speaking
people of Dravidian race from Southern India. According to Yule (Hobson-
Jobson) Kalinga is a very ancient name for the Telugu coast of the Bay of
Bengal, i.e., that coast which lies between the Kistna and Mahanadi rivers.
^ This is one of the many confusions in the division of the Suma; actually
Narsinga had just been described, before Malabar.
^ Orixa or Orissa, corresponding to the vernacular Odisa, whence Odia, as
in this case, must not be confused with Ayuthia, which was written also as
Odia by Fires and other sixteenth-century Portuguese writers. See note p. 103.
H.C.S. I.
E
Moun-
tains
which
divide
Malabar
from
Narsinga.
The faith
of
Malabar.
66 TOME FIRES
Mangalore in the land of Kanarese belonging to the king of
Narsinga, and it ends at Cape Comorin in the king of Quilon’s
land, which borders on the province of Kalinga in the said
kingdom of Narsinga. Inland the whole of this country is
surrounded by mountains which divide it from the said kingdom
of Narsinga. This country must extend from a hundred and ten
to a hundred and twenty leagues along the coast, and inland
to the mountains it is about five leagues wide in some places and
fifteen in others, and so it goes on without getting narrower or
wider.
These lands are so high that they do not allow the north-east
and east winds to penetrate to the Indian coast, nor on the other
hand do the south-west and west winds blow in the kingdom of
Narsinga — that is, if you are coming from Ceylon to the coast of
India with fresh winds blowing from the above [quarters], they
cease blowing when you reach the Choromandel coast. You set
out with the west winds, and as soon as you enter the Ceylon
channel they stop blowing. Whence it follows that since Malabar
is lacking in dry winds it is fresh and gracious, while the pro-
vince of Choromandel, which lacks wet winds, is sterile, without
a single tree, large or small, as I shall tell in more detail when I
describe it. Enough of this.
The whole of Malabar believes, as we do, in the Trinity of
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three in one, the only true God*.
From Cambay to Bengal all the people hold this [faith], as I will
tell in more detail in the description of the land where St.
Thomas the Apostle lies.
I ought not to enter into an account of Malabar, which is
already so well known to Your Highness, since you have three
beautiful, large and important fortresses there, that is, that of
Calicut, that of Cochin with a very large gateway made entirely
^ Dames (i, 115; ii, 37) says that the ‘Trinity’ described by Barbosa is
related to the Hindu Trimurtti or the three-fold god of Brahma with Vishnu
and Siva. When describing Cambay, Castro (p. 1 14) says that it ‘is inhabited
by a people called Guzarates . . . among whom there are some men, like
philosophers and religious men, who are called Bramenes, who believe in the
Holy Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and many other things of our very
sacred law’. Barros (i, iv, 9; ii, v, i) also refers to the Brahman ‘Trinity’ but
remarks that it is ‘very different’ from the Christian Trinity, and is also rejected
by the Mohammedans.
MALABAR
67
of lime of cockle-shells, and that of Cannanore which is well
situated with a good moat; but, to keep to the promised order I
will mention everything in this voyage.
The people of Malabar are black and some of them dark
brown. All the kings are Brahmans, which is the caste of their
priests. The language is almost the same [throughout the
country]. They differ in very little, as is the case in Italy. The
whole country is thickly populated. There must be a hundred
and fifty thousand Nayars {Nairesy in Malabar. They are
fighters, with sword and buckler, and archers. They are men
who adore their king, and if by chance the king dies in battle
they are obliged to die, and if they do not they go against the
custom of their country and they are made a reproach for ever.
The Nayars are loyal and not traitors. Before a king of Malabar
fights with another, he has first to let him know, so that he may
prepare himself. That is their custom. No Nayar, when he is fit
to take up arms, can go outside his house unarmed even if he be
a hundred years old, and when he is dying he always has his
sword and buckler by him, so close that if necessary he can take
hold of them. They always make a deep reverence to the
masters who teach them, so much so that if the best of the
Nayars were to meet a Mukkuvan {MacuaY who happened to
have taught him something, he would make him a reverence and
then go and wash himself. If a Nayar meets another older than
himself on the road, he does him reverence and gives place to
him. If there were two, three or four brothers, the oldest would
have to be seated while the others remained standing.
And because the chief people of Malabar are the Brahmans,
from whom the kings are descended, and who are more noble by
reason of their priesthood, I will talk about them first and after-
wards about the Nayars and the other castes.
* The Naires were aborigines of South-Western India, where they formed
the noble and military caste corresponding to the Kshatriyas, second in
importance to the Brahmans. At present, ‘Nair or Nayar is a title added to
nearly all the names of the race, and it is, like Mister or Esquire, assumed as a
birthright by any respectable member of the race who has no other’. Balfour,
The Cyclopaedia of India, s.v.
^ A caste name applied to the fishermen of Malabar coast, from the
Dravidian mukkuha, ‘to dive’. Mukkuvan is the name generally used, but
Mucua (in the plural Mucuar) is also frequently met with.
68
TOM^ PIRES
Fol i2jr. Brahmans are priests who wear a cord hanging from the left
shoulder and under the right arm^ This cord is composed of
twenty-seven threads, made in three. The best of this people are
the Kshatriyas {Chatrias)\ then come the Pattars (Patadares) and
after these the Nambutiris (Nambuderis), and lowest of all come
the Nambutiris {Namhurisy. These Brahmans are of very
ancient birth. They are of purer blood than the Nayars. It is
their duty to be in the turucois^ praying. They are well versed
in the things of their faith. The most important of these Brah-
mans are with the king of Malabar. They are men who do not
eat anything which has been living [flesh and] blood; and for
this reason the ancients said of them that no person in Malabar
should have the power to eat beef on pain of death, and that this
would be a great sin. The reason must be because the Brahman
women ate the milk and afterwards refused the meat, whence
comes the great esteem in which cows are held, for in many
heathen places the cow is worshipped as a sacred thing. These
Brahmans have the power of excommunication and absolution.
None of them bears arms or goes to war; nor are they ever put to
death for any reason whatever. They go freely wherever they
like, even if there is war.
Many people in Malabar, Nayars as well as Brahmans and
their wives — in fact about a quarter or a fifth of the total popula-
tion, including the people of the lowest castes — have very large
legs, swollen to a great size; and they die of this, and it is an ugly
thing to see. They say that this is due to the water through
which they go, because the country is marshy. This is called
* This sacred thread, called is always worn by Brahmans.
* ‘A few of the princely families of Malabar claim to be pure Kshatriyas . . .
Racially, no doubt, Kshatriyas were originally Nayars’. C. A. Innes, Malabar
Gazetter, p. 112, Madras, 1908. The Kshatriyas are immediately below the
Brahmans in the caste hierarchy. The generic name for the Malabar Brahman
is Nambiidiri. In addition to the NambUdiris — who are mostly landlords, and
are polluted by the touch of all castes below them, and by the approach of all
lower than Nayars — ^there are two other classes of Brahmans, called Pattars
and Embrdndiris. The two forms namhudiri and namburi are both Malayalam
for Nambutiri. Pires’ remarks are rather confusing, though he is not far from
the truth.
3 Turucol, Turicol or Turcol — Temple or pagoda in Malabar, according to
Dalgado, s.v. But Gdis (i, Ixxxix, cxii) says — ‘a Turcol, which are houses of
prayer, where live religious men, as friars among us’, suggesting a monastery.
MALABAR
69
pericaes in the native language, and all the swelling is the same
from the knees downward, and they have no pain, nor do they
take any notice of this infirmity ^
In Malabar it is the custom for the woman to have her eyes on
the bed during the act of coition and for the man to have his on
the ceiling, and this is the general practice among great and
small, and they consider anything else to be strange and foreign
to their condition, and some Portuguese used^ to the country
do not find this ugly.
When they are ill the patients do not eat meat; and have a diet Malabar
of fish alone. The chief remedy is to play the kettle-drum and
other instruments to the patients for two or three days — and they
say this does good. If they have fever they eat fish and keep
washing themselves; if they vomit they wash their heads with
cold water and it is good, and it stops; and if they have a catarrh
they drink lanha water — lanha is the young coconut — and it
stops at once; if they want to purge themselves they take the
crushed leaves, or the juice or the seeds of the figueira do
inferno^ y and they are well purged, and they wash themselves; if
they are badly wounded, they let warm coconut oil run over the
wound twice a day for an hour or two, and they are cured. Our
people when they have fevers eat fat chickens and drink wine
and are cured. This happens to many, but those who go on a
diet are used up.
What is considered in Malabar to be the worst thing you can Affronts
in
‘ Perical or Panicale — From the Malayalam perikkal, ‘big leg’ — elephan- Malabar.
tiasis; also commonly called ‘Cochin leg’ or ‘St. Thomas’s leg’ in India.
* Though in the Paris MS it is written trosnados (a meaningless word), the
Lisbon MS has custumados, and Ramusio translated accordingly.
^ Although several Portuguese-English dictionaries refer to Figueira do
inferno as Palma Christ! or castor-oil plant, this is incorrect. The Palma
Christ! or Castor-oil is Ricinus communis Linn., and the Figueira do inferno is
Datura Stramonium Linn. Both plants are found in Portugal as well as in
India, and though they belong to distant families, there is some sort of
resemblance between them. The Datura, whose effects were so picturesquely
described by Garcia da Orta (xx) in 1563, is sometimes mixed in India with
intoxicants, which thereby become ‘most reprehensible and even dangerous
to life. Moreover, the seeds are known to enter into the composition of certain
alcoholic beverages and render the consumers of these literally mad’. Watt,
p. 488. Pii>es undoubtedly refers to Ricinus communis, though it seems rather
strange that he should mistake one plant for the other.
TOM^ PIRES
70
Fol. I2yv.
Custom of
the Kings
of
Malabar.
do to anyone to whom you bear ill-will is to break a new sauce-
pan at his door. This is a great insult. Or if you pass along the
street and throw it so that it breaks against that person, that is
worse. These things mean death for the man who does them,
and anyone who lets them pass is for ever dishonoured.
The kings of Malabar are all Brahmans with these threads,
some of them of more noble birth than others; because it is the
custom in Malabar that the king’s son does not succeed to the
kingdom, but his brother or nephew; and because they are
Brahmans and cannot marry Nayars, since that is forbidden,
they choose the most honoured Brahmans of that generation to
mate with the [king’s] sisters, so that the eldest [son] may
succeed; and thus the Brahmans sleep with the king’s sisters
and from them come the kings of Malabar. As the king of
Cochin is of pure blood and there is no one on earth whom he
can marry, if there are Brahman Patamares of Cambay — who
were related of old to the Brahman king, who was once held to
be a saint — these are chosen for the act of generation; and if
there are more they take the noblest Brahmans in the land. They
say that this has been their custom for thirty thousand years.
The kings of Malabar marry as often as they like; and after
they have had the women they give them in marriage, according
to the custom of the country, to important people. The king’s
sons are Nayars like the others. They do not inherit anything.
Many of the kings marry for dowries and sometimes they keep
them until their death. If any king of Malabar wants the wife of
one of the most honourable men of his kingdom, who are the
Kaimals {Caimaes), she comes willingly, and these Kaimals are
greatly honoured ^ Often the great lords give money to the
Patamares to deflower their wives, and the Patamares argue
about the price.
All the Brahmans are married. Their sons inherit their pro-
perty. The Brahman women are chaste and do not lie with any
* Caimal or Kaimal — Duarte Barbosa says: ‘certain earls (condes) whom
they call Cahimal’. Dames (ii, 13) translated condes more generally as ‘nobles’.
According to Dalgado (i, 172), sometimes it is the ordinary mode of address
employed by the low classes when speaking to some Nayar or an individual of
the military caste in Malabar. Further on Fires refers again to the Caimaes in
more detail (pp. 81-2).
MALABAR
71
man but their husbands; and the Brahman woman always
remains a Brahman and her children are of unmixed race. A
Brahman woman must not sleep with a Nayar man, but a Nayar
woman may sleep with a Brahman man at wilb.
None of the Nayars have either father or son. They do not Nayars of
marry. The more lovers a Nayar woman has, the more impor-
tant she is. So if a Nayar woman has a daughter, or two or three,
she chooses a Nayar for her while she is a virgin, and he
marries her. For the deflowering they make a feast, for which
the Nayar pays according to his means; and he stays with her for
four days, and as a sign that he has deflowered her he places a
small piece of gold round her neck, worth about thirty reis,
called quete^. This man goes, and other Nayars come; and they
arrange among themselves — one gives her one thing, and one
another, and the more she has the more honoured she is. And
the Nayars are also put to expense with other women. For the
most part the Nayars do not eat in the women’s houses. And
that is why no Nayar has ever had father or son, because each
woman has from two to ten known [lovers], which is accounted
a merit in her. There are also Nayars who sell oil and fish, and
many are craftsmen.
If any Pulayan (poleaa) touches a Nayar woman with his hand
or with a stone when she is out of her house, he runs the risk of
being killed or sold, and if he touches her when she is walking
with a Nayar she is not contaminated. This is done so that they
shall not seek the company of people of low condition. If he who
touches her is caught, he dies for this crime. The Nayar women
of Malabar have no virtue, nor do they sew or work, but only eat
and amuse themselves.
* The Paris and Lisbon MSS agree in this sentence. But Ramusio’s trans-
lation, which I follow here, seems more correct than the two Portuguese
texts.
^ According to the Lisbon MS, which, as well as Ramusio, calls it also
quete. Many sixteenth-century writers describe this marriage ceremony and
this ornament, but no one else calls it quete. Some of them call it tali or tale.
Dalgado records quete as meaning in Ceylon a handful or small portion.
However, the Talikettu or Tali-kettu Kalyanam is the name given among
the Nayars and some other Malayalam castes to the marriage ceremony gone
through by girls, much on the lines described by Pires. Iyer, The Cochin
Tribes and Castes, ii, 22-8; Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, s.v.
72
TOM^ PIRES
Families In Malabar a son cannot be more important than his father,
h ^ Brahman woman can; and a Nayar is
a Nayar, and in all the crafts, and among jesters, singers
and sorcerers, the son has to follow his father’s profession.
The lowest caste are the Parayans (pareos) who eat cows’ flesh.
They are lettered men and sorcerers. The Pulayans work in the
fields and so do the Vettuvans {heitudas)\ the Vannathamars
{mainates) are washermen; the Yravas are stone-masons; the
Pulayans play music in the turucoes or at feasts; the Canjares
dance in the temples and pagodas; the Mukkuvans are fisher-
men; the Kaniyans (canacos) make salt; and in addition to these
there are carpenters, goldsmiths and craftsmen of all kinds; and
then there are the Irava men who make the wine^ None of these
may go along the roads frequented by the Nayars, and they all
keep away from them on pain of death; and in case of need —
such as war or sickness — and in fencing and jousts for sword and
lance, the Nayars and the king may touch them, and wash them-
selves and be clean; and if a Nayar needs any thing from these
people, it is not a sin for him to deal with them if it is for his own
benefit. In all these castes the son inherits his father’s property,
and each man is married to one woman.
I will not enter into further details about this province, which
is full of idolatry and witchcraft and other very heathen prac-
tices, because you already know about the conditions there, and
because it is not a subject which comes within the scope of this
account.
Fol. i28r. There are cobras de capello in this province and also breath-
Snakes. snakes {cobras de bafoy. The cobras de capello are small and black,
’ Barbosa mentions eighteen different castes of Malabar, which Dames
(ii, 71) assembles in a table, comparing the names given by him with those
in Ramusio’s translation and the Spanish, together with the modern forms.
The Yravas and Canjares are not among them, unless the latter are either the
Chaliyans, weavers, referred to by Barbosa as Caletis, or the Kusavans,
potters, referred to as Cuiavem. Although the Yravas or Jrauaas are men-
tioned as masons and wine-makers, Dalgado {s.v. Iravd) quotes them only under
the latter craft. Barbosa refers to the Poleas, Poleahs or Pulayans as rice tillers
only, to the Betunes or Vettuvans as salt-makers, and to the Canaquas or
Kaniyan as astrologers.
^ These ‘breath-snakes’ cannot be identified. They must be a product of
the natives’ imagination, and Pires says quite honestly that he had never seen
them.
MALABAR
73
as thick as your thumb and three or four spans long. They have
fangs, and the loose skin on their heads makes a kind of covering
called a hood (capello) when they raise them. If these snakes
bite, they kill at once. They say that the breath-snakes are the
same length and as thick as a man’s wrist, without hoods, and
that their breath alone is deadly. I have never met a man who
has seen one. Both heathen and Mohammedan sorcerers take
the cobras about in jars, and by making a certain noise they
make the snakes move about on the ground, and when they say
certain words to them they take them fearlessly in their hands;
but if by chance the snakes do bite them, they die. The sorcerers
catch these [snakes] wild in the jungle and charm them.
The Nayars and the Brahmans are forbidden by law to kill
cobras, which they say are holy things, and they have special
places for them in their gardens, where they give them cooked
rice.
There are fifteen thousand Christians in this province of Christians
Malabar, dating back to the time of St. Thomas the Apostle.
Two thousand of these are men of repute, noblemen, merchants,
estimable people, and the others are craftsmen, poor people.
They are privileged and are allowed to touch the Nayars. These
Christians live in the district from Chetwayi {Chetua) to Quilon
(Coulam). Outside this area there are none of the early Christians
— I do not refer to those who have been converted in Your
Highness’ time, nor to those who are now being converted
every day, and who are numerous.
In one part of this land of Malabar there are large rivers, deep Malabar
in some places and shallow in others, which make it strong, and
where they fish, where they can go in large tones, to wit, from ^^g
Ponnani {Panane) to Quilon. The other part of Malabar is dry rivers.
and easy to travel over by land; but in this part [you have to go]
in tones catures^.
Going from Mangalore to Comorin, the following are the
kings in the province of Malabar: the king of Bangor, the king of
^ Tone or tona is a small boat with a sail and oars, used in Southern India.
Catur is also a long narrow boat much used in India in old times. It seems
probable that the modern English ‘cutter’ is derived from catur. Fires gives
more particulars about this craft, further on, and always uses the two names
together, apparently to represent a single craft.
74
TOME FIRES
Sea ports
in this
province.
Cota}., the king of Cannanore, the king of Calicut, the king of
Tanore [Tanor), the king of Kranganur {Cramganor), the king of
Cochin, the king of Kayankulam {Caya Coulatn), the king of
Quilon {Coulam), the king of Travancore, the king of Comorin.
There are great Kaimals in this country, some of whom are
greater than many of these kings, though they have not the title
of king. Some of them are Brahmans and some of them Nayars.
The king who has the most land and the most people is the king
of Quilon; the one who has more nobility is the king of Cochin;
the king of Calicut has the greatest title. After Quilon in inhabi-
tants comes Cannanore, and after Cannanore comes Kayan-
kulam. The men of Calicut are the best fighters.
The following are the inhabited seaports in this province
where there are ships: Manjeshwaram {Mayceram), Mayporam,
Kumbla {Combuld), Kattakulam {Coty Coulam), Nileshweram
(Njliporam), Hyeri, Baliapatam {Balea Patanam), Cannanore,
Durmapatan {Tarmapatam), Madayid {Marlarjanj), Chomba-
kulu (Combaa), Puthupattanam (Pudopatanam), Tricodi {Tiri-
corij), Bairacono, Kollam {Coulam), which they call Pantalayini
{Pamdaranj), Kappatta (Capocar), Calicut, Chaliyam {Chaliaa),
Parappanangadi {Para Purancorj), Tanore {Tanor), Ponnani
{Panane), Veleankode {Bely Ancoro), Chetwayi {Chetua), Kran-
ganur {Cramganor), Cochin, Kayankulam {Caya Coulam), Quilon
{Coulam), Vilinjam {Bilinjao), Comorin^.
' Bangar — Bemgar in the Lisbon MS. Probably Bandadkar, inland, be-
tween Mangalore and Cannanore. COTA — Probably Kottayam, the district
east of Cannanore.
2 In the Lisbon MS these names read as follows: ‘mai 9 eram/ maiporam/
combula/ cotecoulao nilixorao/ eriballcaa/ patanam/ cananor tumapatam/
murlariom/ combaa/ pudy patanam/ tericori/ baicarom/ coulao a q chamao
pamdarane capocar/ calequiu chale/ parapuraocole / tanor/ panane/ beti-
amcor/ chatuaa/ chamganor cochym caicoulao/ coulao/ belurgam & o
comorym’.
Mayceram — Probably Manjeshvar or Manjeshwaram, nine miles south-
south-westward of Mangalore; the Mangeiram placed by Barros (i, ix, i)
between Mangalore and Kumbla (Cumbata). It appears as Mamgesirao and
Magicera on several sixteenth-century Portuguese maps.
Mayporam — No place can now be found between Manjeshwaram and
Kumbla which could be called a port, the coast being unbroken, flat, and a
continuous coconut palm grove.
Combula — Kumbla, seven and a half miles from Manjeshwaram; Cumbola
in Barbosa, Cumbata in Barros.
MALABAR
75
There must be about four hundred cargo boats in the king-
dom of Malabar, in the kingdoms and ports we have just
CoTY COULAM — Kattakulam, a modem place in South Kanara, according to
Dames, ii, 79. Cotecolam in Barbosa, Cota-Coulao in Barros.
Njliporam — It may be ‘represented today by the village of Nileshwar or
Nileshweram, south of Kasaragod’, as suggested by Cordier. Cathay and the
Way Thither, iv, 74. Minaporam in Barbosa, Nilichildo in Barros.
Hyeri — A place that existed in the bay south of Mount Dely, or Jelly Baud.
It corresponds to Marco Polo’s Eli, a name that Yule says survives ‘in that of
Mount Dely, properly Monte d’Ely, the Yeli-mala'. Marco Polo, III, xxiv.
On the map of c. 1510 it appears as ely. On Rodrigues’ map (fol. 28) it is
recorded as momte dally, and the Livro de Marinharia (p. 224) says that mdte
dEly is five leagues from Cannanore.
Balea patanam — Baliapatam, Valarpattanam or Azhikkal, a small town and
port on the south bank of the river of the same name, five miles north of
Cannanore. Balaerpatam in Barbosa, Bolepatan in Barros and Baleapatao on
some Portuguese maps.
Tarmapatam — Durmapatan or Dharmapatna, seven miles south-west of
Cannanore. Tremapatam in Barros and on Rodrigues’ map.
Marlarjanj — Perhaps the Maranel of Barbosa and the Marabia of Barros,
Correia and the Portuguese maps, which Dames (ii, 79) identifies with ‘the
place known as Madayid (also called Pazhayangadi)’.
CoMBAA — Chombakulu, a little port two and a half miles south-east of
Mah6, the French settlement at the mouth of the river of the same name.
PliDOPATANAM — Puthupanam or Puthupattanam, on the Kotta River.
Pedirpatam in Barbosa, Puripatan in Barros.
Tiricorij — Tricodi. Tircore in Barbosa.
Bairacono — A place which no longer exists, possibly on the small bay
between Kadalur Point and Vellarakkad, a hillock one and two-thirds miles
westwards.
CouLAM — Pamdaranj — Coulam is the small port Kollam, about three miles
from Kadalur Point, and Pamdaranj is Pandalayini, a place near Kollam.
Pandanare in Barbosa, Pandarane in the chronicles. Perhaps it is the paudacar
on the map of c. 1510. It appears as ilheos de pamdarane on Rodrigues’ map.
In the Livro de Marinharia it is said that Pamderanne is five leagues from
Tramapatdo. Pandarani is already recorded on Reinel’s maps of c. 1517 and
c. 1518.
Capocar — Must correspond to the small port of Kappatta, between Kollam
and Calicut. Capucate in Barbosa, Capocate in the chronicles.
Chaliaa — Chaliyam, a place at the entrance of the Chalium or Chaliyar
River, where the Portuguese had a fortress, four and a half miles south-south-
east of Calicut Creek or Kallayi River. Chiliate in Barbosa, Chdla in
Barros.
Para purancorj — Parappanangadi, the small port eight and a half miles
southwards. Propriamguary in Barbosa, Parangale in the chronicles.
Tanor — Tanore, Tanur or Tanniydrnagaram, four and a half miles further
south.
Bely ANCORO — Veleankode or Velijangod, at the entrance of the Kannira-
mukker River, four miles south-east of Ponnani. Baleancor in Barros.
TOME FIRES
76
described. Some of these are large and some small; they are
ladas^ ships of shallow draught^ with flat bottoms, which will take
heavy loads and draw less water than ships with keels. They are
made like this because the Malabar people usually sail along the
province of Kalinga, which includes the district from Comorin
to Pulicat {Paleacate). As there is a channel between this land
and Ceylon, where the water in the middle is only a fathom and
a half deep at low tide, and which is called the shoals of Chilam
{Baixos ChilamY, they had to make ladas. That is the reason why
these people do not sail on the high seas, except in fear and
trembling. They have still other small ships, which they call
pagueres^ and which take as much cargo as caravels.
Where the The whole of this province is lacking in rice, and it hardly pro-
duces any. In the district from Tanore to Manjeshwaram the rice
comes from Goa and Narsinga on the Kanarese side. This rice is
cold and can be used as far as Tanore. From Tanore to Quilon
Chetua — Chetwayi, a modern town on an island within the mouth of the
river of the same name. Chatua in Barbosa and the chronicles.
Cramganor — Cranganor, Cranganur or Kranganur.
Caya coulam — Kayankulam, about fifty miles south-south-east of Cochin.
Cale Coilam in Barbosa, Caecoulam, Cale Coulao and Caicouldo in the
chronicles and maps.
Bilinjao — Vilinjam, about forty miles south-east of Kayankulam.
Berinjam in Barros, Brintgao, Brijao and Brimgiam on some maps.
' Lada was an old Portuguese word to designate a river bank or ‘water way
along which ships, or any other vessels (that were then indiflferently called
ships) could sail’. Cf. Viterbo, Elucidario, s.v. Lada. Pires’ naos ladas may
mean in this case naus depouco calado (ships of shallow draught).
^ Baixos de Chilam or Chilao was the name given by the Portuguese to the
shifting sandbanks, with intricate channels, now known as Adam’s Bridge,
between Mannari island, off the west coast of Ceylon, and Pamban island, off
the Indian coast. When referring to os baixos de ChildOy the Livro de Mari-
nharia (p. 231) mentions ‘the sandy Chilao point’ which lies west-south-
westward, when coming from the north; this corresponds to Chultram point,
on the eastern end of Pamban island, now the terminus of the South Indian
Railway. The passage through the baixos de Chilao was near this point, where
the water is not so shallow. There is, however, on the western coast of Ceylon,
though rather more to the south, the conspicuous point and port of Chilaw,
which the Portuguese designated first as Celabao or Celauam, and later as
Chilam or Chilao, obviously connected with the name of the baixos. Barros
(ill, ii, i) and Couto (v, i, 7) say, erroneously, that from the baixos de Chilao
came the name of Ceilao to the island. (See note on Ceylon, p. 85.)
3 Ancient cargo boats in Southern India, often mentioned by the
chroniclers. Dalgado, s.v. Paguel.
MALABAR
77
they get their rice from the province of Kalinga by Choromandel.
This rice is hot and is used up to Tanore whence it appears that
where the Choromandel rice is used, that from Goa and the
Kanarese is of no value, and on the other hand where the Kanarese
isused, the other rice is worth a third part less or only half as much.
The ports of Manjeshwaram and Mayporam belong to the Fol. i28v.
king of Bandadkar Malabar begins here and this king is
a neighbour of the Kanarese. It is a land with plenty of rice and tion of the
plenty of fish. Although the people of this kingdom are few in ports
number, they are warlike. They are great archers, and they use
arrows with long and wide heads. They defend their country and
sometimes make war on the Kanarese. It is a small kingdom.
These two seaports have a few ships and some inhabited places,
and they trade with those of this province.
The king of Kottayam has no seaport; all his power is on land. The king
It is a kingdom like the one described above. It is at war with of Kotta-
Cannanore. He mints coins against the will of the kings of^^”*'
Malabar and fears none of them. He and the king of Cannanore
are great enemies. His people and his land are strong, and it is
from here that the Cotafanoes^ come.
The ports of Kumbla, Kattakulam, Nileshweram, Hyeri, Kingdom
Baliapatam, Cannanore, Durmapatan and Madayid belong to Ganna-
the king of Cannanore. All these ports are unimportant, except
the port of Cannanore which is large, noble and important. This
kingdom of Cannanore is large and has a large city and much
trade and many people. The land is good; there is good air and
good water; there are many Moors. The city of Cannanore has
many wealthy merchants. If Your Highness had not taken this
kingdom under your rule, it would be Moorish by now, because
a certain Mamalle Mercar^ was beginning to be very powerful.
There are a great many musketeers in this country, bowmen and
* Cota fandes means ‘fandes from Kottayam’. The fanao was a small coin
formerly used in Southern India, worth between twenty and forty reis, and of
an average weight equivalent to six grains of gold.
^ Mamalle or Mamale is a contraction of Mohammed Ali. Cf. David Lopes,
Historia dos Portugueses no Malabar por Zinadim, p. 69 n. Mercar is the
Mercaire that Pyrard de Laval says means ‘lieutenant or viceroy’. Voyage i,
350. According to Dalgado (j.z;.) Mercar or Marcar, from the Malayalam
marakkdn, means a pilot or helmsman, or figuratively a chief or commandant.
Many contemporary documents and chronicles refer extensively, between
TOME FIRES
Kingdom
of
Calicut.
78
Nayars with sword and dagger. The king is a Brahman with a very
long beard, which is the sign of a Moor rather than of a heathen
priest of Malabar.
The ports of Chombakulu, Puthupattanam, Tricodi, Panta-
layini, Kappatta, Calicut, Chaliyam and Parappanangadi belong
to the kingdom of Calicut. They are small ports. All these have
ships and merchants and good towns. The king of Calicut is
called the Zamorin, that is Lord of all the people of Malabar.
This kingdom is bounded on one side by Cannanore and on the
other by Tanore, that is by these kingdoms. The port of Calicut
is not good because the land slopes up from the sea. The town is
large and has many inhabitants, and a great deal of trading is
done there by many merchants, natives of Malabar as well as
Klings, Chettis and foreigners from all parts, both Moors and
heathens. It is a very famous port and is the best thing in all
Malabar. Many nations used to have great factories here; each
country used to bring its merchandise here, and a great business
of barter and exchange took place. It is a large place; it is
renowned in all this part of Asia as an important place; this
kingdom is smaller than Cannanore; it has better fighting forces;
it is a well-shaded country. They make many kinds of silken
cloths here, and preserves. Although this king has a great name,
he is only obeyed inside his kingdom, and not always that; and
because I am not writing history, I will not give the origin of
this title; only the people of Malabar say that there used to be a
king in this Malabar who reigned over the whole country of
Malabar, and that, persuaded by the Moors, he became a
Mohammedan and started along the road to Mecca, but died in
the kingdom of Dhofar [Tufary before he reached the mouth of
the strait^. He was already out of his mind when he left Malabar,
1501 and 1525, to this ambitious and adventurous Mamale, an important
Moorish merchant in Malabar, and his hostility to the Portuguese. Eventually
his hands were cut off and he was hanged on the wall of the Portuguese
fortress of Cannanore in January 1525. Correia, ii, 862-3; Castanheda, vi,
Ixxx, Ixxxi. Barros (in, ix, 3) says that the hanged Moor was Bala Hacem, but
this is obviously a mistake, in face of Correia’s circumstantial description.
* Dofar, Diufar or Dhofar, on the southern coast of Arabia.
* This was king Cheruman Perumal, whose story is related with variants
by Barbosa and other Portuguese chroniclers. Even Camoens mentions him
in Lusiadas (vii, 32), when describing Malabar.
MALABAR
79
and had divided up the whole country, and after he had given it
away, a relative of his arrived and asked for a portion. He gave
him the land of the city of Calicut, which was a small thing, and
the name has remained until today; but Calicut has grown in
importance on account of the trade that is carried on there,
Tanur has many ships. There is no other seaport there. The Kingdom
king is important and has a good [amount of] land — though not
so extensive as Calicut — and many subjects. The king is related
to the kings of Cochin. His country has many inhabitants. He is
an important Brahman king.
The ports of Ponnani, Veleankode and Chetwayi, with the
land belonging to each, are ports with ships and merchants and
goodly towns. They belong to Brahman lords and Kaimals,
important people, who sometimes seek the support of someone
they like ( ?) and sometimes not. They used to be more attached
to the Calicut faction, but now each one is for himself or acts as
he pleases. Each of these chiefs is like a king of Malabar, and
each one is called king by his own people, but not by the other
kings and lords.
The kingdom of Kranganur is joined to the land of Chetwayi Kingdom
on one side and to the kingdom of Cochin on the other. Kran- Krang-
ganur used to be a place of great repute. It is a good port and has
many inhabitants and good land. The city of Kranganur was
important and had a great deal of trade, before Cochin became
prosperous after the arrival of the Portuguese i. This king is
noble. Sometimes he seeks the support of Cochin — because
Cochin receives part of the revenues of this kingdom — and
sometimes that of Calicut, and sometimes he stands alone. He is
related to the king of Cochin. The kingdom is not very large.
The kingdom of Cochin is very small and very great. The Fol. i2gr.
kingdom is no more than the Island of Vypin {Vaipimy and that
of Cochin, which together contain about six thousand Nayars. o/ Cochin.
' The transcriber of the Paris MS missed out some words which appear
in the Lisbon MS.
* I found this Island of Vypin, Vypeen or Vaipim mentioned for the first
time, in a document dated 22 Feb. 1509, as Vaypy, a place where the Portu-
guese went from the fortress of Cochin to fetch timber to repair and build
ships. Cartas, ii, 430-8. However, the chroniclers relate how, in 1503, the
king of Cochin, after being defeated by the Zamorin of Calicut, withdrew to
8o
TOM^ FIRES
Kingdom
of Kay an-
kulam.
Kingdom
of Quilon.
Kingdom
ofTra-
vancore.
There are lords connected with this kingdom, whose lands are
as large or larger than the kingdom itself; and all these are now
vassals of the king of Cochin on account of the power he has
received through Your Highness; and he is now the greatest of
all, and the head of all the land of Malabar, and more important
than any of them and more highly esteemed. He has a good city
and a good port, and many ships, and does a great deal of trade.
It is the best thing there is here. The Brahman king is the chief
of them all and the pope of this country. He always takes about
with him a great many Kaimals, people who are very important,
as well as many Brahmans.
The kingdom of Kayankulam is bounded on one side by the
land held by the lords of the kingdom of Cochin and on the
other by the kingdom of Quilon. The king has as much land as
Calicut and more. There is a certain amount of trade in his land,
and he has some ships and merchants, though not many. He is
an important king with many subjects. He is held in esteem. He
is rich and a great lord, and has more ships than Quilon.
The kingdom of Quilon is bounded on one side by the king-
dom of Kayankulam and on the other by the kingdom of Tra-
vancore. In addition to the port of Quilon it has the port of
Vilinjam. This king is the greatest in Malabar in land and
subjects. He has the city of Quilon. It is a great port of call
where the ships of many merchants from different places do a
great deal of trade in this kingdom. He is a great lord, and the
principal king of Ceylon used to be his vassal, and used to
receive forty elephants every year as a tribute; but these he now
no longer receives, after Your Highness has made manifest your
power in India. The kingdom of Quilon has great trade, and
there are many ships.
The kingdom of Travancore is bounded on one side by Quilon
and on the other side it ends at Cape Comorin. He has only a
few houses on the sea coast, but inland he is a great lord and an
the Island of Vypin with the Portuguese who were in the factory of Cochin
‘This island of Vaipim is believed among them to be a holy land, as the land
of Jerusalem is among us. . . . And because this island of Vaipim was the first
land uncovered by the sea, it was honoured as the paramount (senhora) of all
the others uncovered later’. Correia, i, 361-3. Castanheda, I, liii; Barros I,
vii, i; Pyrard de Laval, I, 435-
MALABAR
8l
important person with good land and warlike people. This [king]
buys many horses, which go from this kingdom to the kingdom
of Narsinga. He has many subjects, and good men at that. There
are Mukkuvan villages on the sea-coast, and the Mukkuvans
let the people of the interior know when ships are coming in, and
help unload the horses.
The kingdom of Comorin is bounded^ on one side by Travan- Kingdom
core and on the other it extends as far as Qaile^ which belongs to
• • CotnoYi ft
it. The prince of Comorin becomes king of Quilon on the death
of the king of Quilon. With exception of the land in the king-
dom of Travancore, this land of Comorin is not so good as the
others; it has no palm trees, or only very few.
All the kings who live in Malabar are always at war with one
another — on land, because the Nayar’s religion forbids him to
eat at sea, except by permission of his chief Brahman in case of
dire necessity. The Brahmans go to sea even less.
There are in Malabar tones catures, which are long rowing
boats, covered over on top, leaving just room for a man to worm
his way in. Each one of these takes from ten to twenty oars.
They are light, and there are a great many of them, and archers
go in them. They belong to Mukkuvan Arees^, who have many
people and wealth, and there are many along this coast, and if
they find a ship that has been becalmed, by rowing they take it
wherever they like, against the will of the ship’s crew, because
they are great archers. The low caste people in Malabar are very
poor, and they are great thieves. There are more Nayars and
Brahmans than people of any other nation in Malabar.
No one in the whole of Malabar is allowed to roof his house
with tiles, unless it be a turicol or mosque or, by special privilege,
the house of some great Kaimal; and this is to prevent them from
becoming too powerful in the land. And the kings of Malabar
* According to the Lisbon MS and Ramusio.
* Qaile is later spelt Caile, and appears as Calle in the letter of 1516 and as
Cale in the Lisbon MS. This place was often mentioned for its pearl fishery.
Once a famous port near the extreme southern part of India, opposite
Ceylon, it is to-day ‘represented by the deserted site among the lagoons of the
delta of the Tambraparni River now known as Palayakayal or Old Kayal’.
Dames, ii, 122-3; Yule, Marco Polo, ii, 371-4.
3 Arees, plural of arel, chief of the fishermen, pilot, or captain of the port,
in Malabar. From the Malayalam arayal.
F
H.C.S. I.
82
TOME FIRES
enforce this very firmly. They are called Kaimals in the same
way as we say dukes, marquises, counts and other titles, because
they are lords possessing much land and vassals^; and there are
some Kaimals in Malabar with ten thousand Nayar [vassals],
and there are others with a hundred or two hundred Nayars.
rade in There are countless palm trees and arecas along the coast of
Malabar. Malabar; but they do not extend for more than a league and a
half inland, or two leagues at the most. The fruit of the palm
trees is called coconut; we call them nuces Indiae, and the fruit
of the areca is called areca and we call it avelana Indiae. There
are an enormous number of these. There is a great deal of betel.
The merchants of Malabar trade as far as Cambay and the
Rajputs on the Persian side, and as far as Pulicat on the Choro-
mandel side, and also in Ceylon and the Maidive {Diva)
Islands^. All the merchants in Malabar who trade on the sea are
Moors, and they have the whole of the trade. They are great
Fol. i2gv. merchants | and good accountants. These merchants have paid
Nayars who accompany them; and some of these Nayars are
their secretaries and are better accountants than the Moors.
Some of the people of Malabar turned Mohammedan at the
beginning, but not now.
Merchan- Copra, which is the dried kernel of coconuts, ripe coco-
dise of nuts, areca, betel, palm sugar, which is called jaggery, coconut
Malabar, pepper, ginger, tamarind, myrobalan. There must be
about twenty thousand bahars^ of pepper in Malabar, and it
' Perhaps the transcriber of the Paris MS missed a line here, for in the
Lisbon MS and Ramusio it reads as translated above.
^ Pires is the only Portuguese writer who used the form Diva or Diua (see
note p. 53) for the Maidive Islands. Barbosa calls them Ilhas do Maldio, and
all the chronicles Maldivas. However, the form Diva was usual among earlier
writers, from at least as early as the fourth century. From the sixteenth
century down to the present day several writers have tried to explain the
etymology of the word Maldives. No doubt diva means island and is derived
from the Sanskrit dvlpa\ but for mol or male, opinions are most divergent.
The most likely of all explanations is that it is derived from the Sanskrit
mala, meaning ‘a garland or necklace’, which seems rather appropriate to the
configuration of the Maidive Archipelago.
3 Bahar is an ancient weight used in large trading transactions in India and
the Indian Archipelago. Its value varied much with the locality, but it was
generally reckoned as equal to four quintals or 400 lbs. avoirdupois, accord-
ing to Yule (Hobson-jfobson). See pp. 277-8.
MALABAR
83
grows from Chetwayi to the kingdom of Kayankulam, and a
little around Quilon; Kranganur and Cochin are the nearest
ports of call for this pepper, and they take it to wherever they
make the most profit, however difficult the journey. Pepper does
not grow in either Kranganur or Cochin; but the lords who live
near these two kingdoms gather it and sell it. That grown in the
kingdom of Cochin is the best.
Upwards of two thousand quintals of ginger are produced in
this part of Malabar every year. It grows from Calicut to Canna-
nore. That from the land of Calicut is larger, and better, and not
stringy; that from Cannanore is inferior. The largest quantity
comes from Calicut, and the least from Cannanore.
The jungles all over this province are full of myrobalans of all
kinds — citrine, Indian, chebulic and bellericq and there are also
some tamarinds.
Coconuts — Palm trees are the most plentiful things in the
kingdom of Cannanore as far as Vilinjam in the kingdom of
Quilon; from Vilinjam onwards to Choromandel you can count
them because they are so few — hardly any at all.
Many of these dried coconuts are sent out of the country.
They are good merchandise. All the ships take them. Oil is
made from them, and they are also eaten.
There is a great trade in areca, which is generally sent to
Cambay; because most of that in Choromandel comes from
Ceylon, as we shall see when we come to Ceylon. There is a
great deal in Malabar, and dried [areca] is exported in quanti-
ties. The largest amount of it in these parts grows from Cochin
to Cannanore, and the bulk of the trade is made up of this and
coconuts.
Coir also comes from this country. What is known as esparto
is also called coir here. But coir is the fibre or outer covering of
' In his letter of 1516 (Appendix I), Fires says that ‘Myrobalans are of five
sorts’. In the Sutna he names only four of the five sorts he mentions in the
letter. The fifth is the emblic myrobalan or Phyllanthus Emhlica Linn. The
citrine {cetrino) or yellow myrobalan is Terminalia citrina Roxb.; the Indian
(indio) or black myrobalan is Phyllanthus disticus Muell. ; the chebulic (qublico
or quibuly) myrobalan is Terminalia Chebula Retz.; the belleric (beleriqo)
myrobalan is Terminalia belerica Roxb. Orta (xxxvn) deals at length with all
the five sorts.
tom£ pires
84
the coconut shell. Things made from this coir, beaten and spun
in their way, are good and stand up to every kind of use without
spoiling, except if they get wet in fresh water, when they rot.
Nothing but coir is used in these parts for ship’s rigging and
cables, and it is an important trading item. A great deal comes
from the Maidive {Diva) Islands, as we shall see in the proper
place.
So the Moors of Malabar, who are sailors and merchants,
bring their goods from the Diu coast, and also from the Choro-
mandel coast, Ceylon and the Maidive {Diua), and do a good
trade in Malabar. Calicut is the chief place where most of the
merchandise goes.
[ceylon]
Fol. i6or. As I followed the coast of the mainland, I had no mind to deal
Account
of the
with the island of Ceylon, and afterwards I almost forgot about
it; and it did not seem right to fail to speak of it even in a place
island of
Ceylon
(Ceilam)
inserted out of the proper order; but the scarcity of paper made
me do this, and so as not to put in a leaf and break the original
order.
The beautiful island of Ceylon is situated over against
Comorin; it extends almost to Nagore {Nadr\ which must be a
good hundred and thirty leagues of coastline. Cape Comorin
is thirty five leagues out to sea, and from there onwards it draws
nearer until at the nearest point it is only fifteen leagues away.
And all the Malabar ships sail between this island and the
Choromandel coast; but those making for Bengal or Pegu or
Siam, go round the island on the southern side.
The island of Ceylon is large; it must be three hundred
leagues in circumference, much longer than it is wide. It is very
populous; it has many towns and large houses of prayer, with
copper pillars, and with roofs covered with lead and copper.
The kings of Ceylon are five. They are all heathens. They stand
between the people of Malabar and the Klings. The land is well
provided with everything, except that there is a scarcity of rice.
It has plenty of the other foodstuffs.
CEYLON
8S
The best part of the island is from Galle {CaleeY up to the
point opposite Comorin, and this is where the chief king is,
and the best towns, and at this point rise great mountain ranges,
and here are found precious stones in this king’s land, where all
the trade is. It is an island for trade and navigation.
The chief one is Colombo {Columho)^ another is Negombo Ports in
(Nygumbo), and Chilaw (Celabao) and Dewundara (Tenavarqe)
and Weligama {Balitngaoy. The king has his residence near the
* Galle, already called Gdlle by Barros, and Gale by Castanheda, corre-
sponds to the modern Point de Galle and Galle harbour in the south-western
end of the island. Recorded for the first time on the map of c. 1 540 as galte.
2 The map of 1 502, so-called Cantino, is the first to represent Ceylon approxi-
mately in its right position. It has on the east coast three place-names;
morachitu (Mullaitivu), traganamelee (Trincomalee), and pananio (Panawa?);
off the south-east coast of the island it has the inscription: ‘here grow cinna-
mon and many other kinds of spices, and here they fish for pearls and seed-
pearls. The people of this island are idolaters and they trade together with
Calicut’. Next comes Rodrigues’ map (fol. 28), the first on which the island
is called Ilha de (eillam\ a supplementary inscription explains: 0 propo name
destaa ilha se chama iranary (the proper name of this island is Iranary).
Barros (iii, ii, i) says that the proper name of the island is Ilandre, which the
Portuguese did not know, so they called it Ceilao, from the baixos de Childo.
See note p. 76. ‘The Malabars and other Indians call this island Hibendro
[the b being an obvious mistake for /], which means rank land’. Castanheda,
II, xxii. Illendre means ‘the kingdom of the island’ in the Malabar language.
Couto, V, i, 5. But neither was right. It seems that Iranary or Ilandre comes
from the Tamil Ilan-nddu, ‘the country of Ceylon’. Hobson-Jobson, s.v.
Ceylon; Ferguson, The Discovery of Ceylon by the Portuguese in 1506, p. 380,
and History of Ceylon, pp. 30-3; Dames, ii, 109. Another note on Rodrigues’
map of Ceylon says: te alifantes aRoz esta tern canella t asi muytos Robis
t outra pedraria (this has elephants, rice; it has cinnamon, as well as many
rubies and other precious stones). This map has the following place names:
ticanamalee (Trincomalee), maticalab (Batticaloa), baligaoo este he iraua
(Weligama, this is Irana), bagicancla (Galle), alicano (Alutgama), penotore
(Panadure), colunbo (Colombo); between the last two names is written: outros
qatro falece aq pera por (four others are missing here for lack of space
[to write them down]). Another Rodrigues’ map (fol. 33) represents the two
northern thirds of the island, with the following inscriptions and names:
A yiha de feillam homde toda pedraria t muyta canella t muytg allifamtes j j .
t 0 profo nome desta ilha se chama Jranaryj j (The Island of Ceylon where
[there are] all precious stones and much cinnamon and many elephants. And
the proper name of this island is Jranary)-, Janapanapatatiam este te alifantes
este he baneane (Jaffna; this has elephants; this is Banian); ticanamalee este te
aRoz nele (Trincomalee; this has rice in it); maticalab este te aly f antes j he
macuaj (Batticaloa; this has elephants; it is Mukkuvan); desta Jlha a Jlha de
gamysspolla ha duzemtas llegoas (from this island to the island of Gamispola
is two hundred leagues); alicano (the upper part of this word was cropped
when the volume was bound) (Alutgana), penotore (Pdnadure), calitore
86
tom:^ pires
port of Colombo, half a league from the port, and in the greater
part of the island has the following merchandise:
Ceylon It has all kinds of precious stones, except diamonds, emeralds,
m^chan- turquoises. It has all the others in quantities. The stones are not
dtsc»
sold without the king’s licence. Every stone in the country worth
fifty cruzados belongs to the king. This is by decree under pain of
death to whoever has it, and it is sold through the king’s hands
Fol. i 6 ov. to whoever goes there to buy it. | It has a great abundance of
elephants and ivory; it has cinnamon. Elephants are sold by the
cubit; they are measured from the tip of the fore-foot to the top
of the shoulder. Cinnamon is usually worth a cruzado a bahar.
The bahar is the same as that of Cochin — three quintals and
thirty arrates. The country has a great deal of areca, which is
called avelana Indiae in Latin. It is eaten with betel. It is a food-
stuff and is very cheap. It is sold in Choromandel.
Ceylon trades elephants, cinnamon, ivory and areca with the
whole of the Choromandel and Bengal, [and] Pulicat, taking
rice, white sandalwood, seed-pearls, cloth and other merchan-
dise in return.
Merchan- Rice, silver, copper, a little quicksilver, rosewater, white sandal-
dise of wood and Cambay cloths, a few cafutos, a great many mantazes,
^C^lon 'vispices^. All white cloth is of value, and some clothing — not much
— from Pulicat, a little pepper, and also cloves and nutmeg.
Coinage They have silver fandes, four being worth one Cochin fanam,
of the which are eighteen to the cruzado. Gold money is current every-
country. Ceylon at its value. Ceylon has good craftsmen —
jewellers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and turners chiefly. The
people of Ceylon are serious, well educated. The grandees do
little honour to strangers, and they do not steal, [only] if they
cannot. They have complete justice among them.
(Kalutara), colunbo (Colombo), mogutuard (Maguhare?), nygonbo (Negombo)
and celauam (Chilaw).
Besides calee (Galle), columbo, ny gumbo (Negombo), celabao (Chilaw) and
balimgao (Weligama), Pires mentions tenavarqe, which corresponds to Dewun-
dara (or Devundara or Dewin uwara), on Dondra Head, the southernmost
peninsula of Ceylon. This is Barros’ Tanabare (III, ii, i) and Couto’s
Tanavark, Tancuarem or Tanaverem (v, vi, 3; x, iv, 12; x, x, 15).
* Cacuto was an Indian cloth, perhaps black or dark, of Persian origin.
Mantaz was a Cambay cloth, perhaps of cotton. Vispice was a coarse cotton
cloth in India. Dalgado, s.vv. Ca9Uto, Mantaz and Bespi9a.
CEYLON
87
The king is very arrogant in not allowing people to speak to
him except from far off. He always used to be a tributary of the
king of Quilon, sending forty elephants yearly; and since the
affair of the factor whom they killed there in Quilon they say
that the king of Ceylon did not pay him any more tribute. The
land of Ceylon is beautiful, well shaded. It has many native
fighting men, bowmen and lancers. It has a few ships of its own,
and they trade from Quilon [and] from Bengal to Cambay. They
trade mainly in the port of Colombo because it is the most
important.
They do not trade with the other kings because they have no
ports, and if some have them they are shallow; but the kings are
wealthy, and they come and bring elephants and cinnamon to
this king’s land and there they arrange about their merchandise.
These kings have some rice in their lands. They are all relations
and friends.
The island of Ceylon has many religious men, such as friars,
monks, beguines, under a vow of chastity; and every man of
Malabar and gentile holds the observances of Ceylon in venera-
tion. Their temples are richly adorned and the priests are
dressed in white, not after the fashion of the people. They are
ill-disposed towards Moors and worse towards us. The different
peoples say that they are all ruled justly.
[THIRD BOOK]
[BENGAL TO INDO CHINA]
[Bengal — Arakan — Pegu — Siam — Burma — Cambodia —
Champa — Cochin China]
[BENGAL]
Fol. T34r. f I Bengalees are great merchants and very independent,
I brought up to trade. They are domestic. All the
JL merchants are false.
The Bengalees are merchants with large fortunes, men who
sail in junks. A large number of Parsees, Rumes, Turks and
Arabs, and merchants from Chaul, Dabhol and Goa, live in
Bengal. The land is very productive of many foodstuffs: meat,
fish, wheat, and [all] cheap. The king is a Moor, a warrior. He
has great renown among the Moors. The people who govern the
kingdom are Abyssinians. These are looked upon as knights;
they are greatly esteemed; they wait on the kings in their apart-
ments. The chief among them are eunuchs and these come to be
kings and great lords in the kingdom. Those who are not
eunuchs are fighting men. After the king it is to this people that
the kingdom is obedient from fear. They are more in the habit
of having eunuchs in Bengal than in any other part of the world.
A great many of them are eunuchs. Most of the Bengalees are
sleek, handsome black men, more sharpwitted than the men of
any other known race.
Method They have now been following the Pase (Pafee) practice in
ofsucces- Bengal for seventy-four years, that whoever kills the king be-
swn in the king. They hold and believe that no one can kill the king
’ without the consent of God, and he therefore becomes king; and
in this way the kings last a very short time. From that time up to
now it has always been Abyssinians — ^those who are very near
to the king — who have reigned. This is done in such a way that
there is no surprise in the kingdom. The merchants live in peace.
It is already the custom. Formerly it was not done in this way,
88
Ifis
PLATE XVI
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 33) of the Bay of Bengal, with part of Ceylon,
and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (p. 522)
BENGAL 89
but was from father to son. They borrowed this practice from
Pase and they keep strictly to it.
The king of Bengal is powerful . He has many mounted men. The
There must be a hundred thousand mounted men in his kingdom. King's
He fights with heathen kings, great lords and greater than he; but
because the king of Bengal is nearer to the sea, he is more
practised in war, and he prevails over them. He is much given
to arms. He is a very faithful Mohammedan. The kings of this
kingdom turned Mohammedan three hundred years ago. The
land is very rich.
The king of Orissa borders on Bengal on the Choromandel Tributary
side. He is a great king and he is his tributary. He possesses a
great many elephants and he is the chief king and rich. The of Bengal.
good diamonds come from this country.
Arakan {Rapatny borders on Bengal on the Pegu side. This
[king] has many horses and is warlike and he is always at war
with him. And this king is also tributary to the said king of
Bengal.
The King of Coos^ is a heathen. They say he must have
seventy thousand horsemen, and he is also tributary to him.
This kingdom of Cous has much pepper and silk and opium.
The king of Tripura is also a heathen, in the interior,
and a tributary of his. He possesses many elephants and [is] the
lord over all these four kings. His vassals are great lords. The
rich things there are in Bengal are made in these kingdoms, and
* In Pires’ time the Mohammedan sovereign of Bengal was Alauddin or
Ala-ud-Din II, who reigned from i499(?) to 1521.
^ This is the Arcangil of Barbosa, and Arragam, Aracam, Arracao,
Aracao or Racao of Portuguese chroniclers and maps.
3 Coos or Com. Cam in the Lisbon MS. In his description of Bengal,
Barros (iv, lx, i), after referring to the Reino de Arracam, mentions the Reino
de Cou. It is likely that Coos corresponds to Barros’ Cou. He writes that
‘The Bengalees say that [some time ago] . . . the Tiporitas [inhabitants of
Tipdra or Tripura] made an alliance with those of the kingdom of Cou, also
hostile to the Bengalees, whom they do not obey any more; and as this king-
dom of Cou is great, has more horsemen than any of its neighbours, and is
difficult country because of the many mountains, it alone could conquer
Bengal, the more so if helped by the Tiporitas, who are a very warlike people’.
* The state of Tripura, in Bengal, which appears as Reino de Tipora on
Lavanha’s map of Bengal, added by him in 1615 to his first edition of Barros’
Decada IV. Bocarro calls it Tipara, ch. xcix.
TOM^ PIRES
Fol. 134V.
Ports of
Bengal.
90
because they cannot live without the sea, they obey him,
because he allows them an outlet for their merchandise. It must
be three years now since they rose against Bengal. They are
waging a fierce war and do not obey him. This Tipura has an
infinite amount of cotton.
The king of Bengal is always at war with the king of Delhi,
and the captains and men of one and the other are always fight-
ing. The king of Delhi is a much greater lord than the king of
Bengal, but he is fifteen days’ journey away from Bengal and
there is not much water along the road, and for this reason the
said king of Bengal is not obedient to the said Xaquedarxa^, king
of Delhi. This king is a heathen, a great lord, much feared, with
a very large number of horses, elephants and men.
The principal port is that of the City of Bengal^, whence the
kingdom derives its name. It takes two days to go from the mouth
of the river up to the city, and they say that at the lowest tide
there are three fathoms. The city must have forty thousand
inhabitants. The king has his residence in this city. They are all
* Sikandar Lodi, who reigned till 1517.
^ ‘The City of Bengal’, was the ancient capital of Bengal, the great historic
city of Gaur or Gour. Its ruins, extending over an immense area, still exist a
few miles south of English Bazar, on the eastern bank of the old channel of
the Ganges. When Pires wrote down his information, Gour was in full
splendour; it had been, though with ups and downs, a great centre for some
centuries. The identity of the so-called ‘City of Bengal’, mentioned also by
Varthema and Duarte Barbosa, has given rise to much controversy. Opinions
have been divided mainly between Gaur, Chittagong and Satgaon, besides
several other places. Studying and discussing new data, mainly from Pires’
Suma, Portuguese chronicles and early maps, I have dealt at length with this
very interesting subject, together with that of Satgaon (Sadegam), in two
articles — The 'City of Bengal' in early reports, and A ‘Cidade de Bengala' no
seculo XVI, published respectively in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
of Bengal and in Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa. I came to the
following conclusions: (i) The ‘City of Bengala’ of the early sixteenth-
century writers was Gaur. There are many reasons for this identification, but
the decisive argument in its favour is the fact that Tom6 Pires mentioned the
‘City of Bengala’ and Satgaon as different places, and said that the former,
a great city of 40,000 hearths, lay two days’ journey up the river, which
excludes Chittagong. (2) Later on, however, when the Portuguese settled in
Bengal, the designation ‘City of Bengala’ corresponded to Chittagong, as is
shown by several mid sixteenth-century Portuguese chroniclers and carto-
graphers. (3) As far as I know the designation ‘City of Bengala’ was never
applied by the Portuguese to any other city or port of Bengal.
BENGAL
91
palm-leaf huts, but the king’s house is of adobe and well built.
This river is the Ganges — the Bengalees say that it comes from
heaven.
The other port is Satgaon {SadegatnY over against Orissa. It
has a good port; it has a good entrance. It is a good city and rich,
where there are many merchants. It must have ten thousand
inhabitants. These are the chief trading cities in Bengal. There
are others inland, but they are strongly fortified garrison towns,
of no [commercial] importance, and there is constant war in the
interior.
Orissa {Orixa), which is in the kingdom of Orissa, is the port
of the city of Orissa. It lies near the sea.
Cultarey, Armagon (Arjamom), Pulicat (Paleacate), Nagore
(Nador), Negapatam (Nagapatam) of the great and famous
turucol of Narsinga — all these ports in the Bomaquelim, land of
Narsinga^.
* Satgaon is today a ruined city north-west of the modern town of Hugh,
twenty-three miles north of Calcutta. It was the mercantile capital of Bengal
from the days of Hindu rule until the foundation of Hugh by the Portu-
guese in 1579. The Portuguese speak of O Goli or O Golim, just as they say
O Porto. From the latter resulted Oporto; so the former gave Hooghly or Hugh.
^ In the Lisbon MS these names read: ‘callcari/ ariamao paleacate na
omaga/ patamto/ turocoll/.’
Port and city of Orixa — As Gour corresponds to Cidade de Bengala, so
Cuttack, the historical capital of Orissa, must correspond to cidade dorixa or
City of Orissa. Cuttack, the chief city of Orissa is on the right bank of the
Mahamadi River, fifty-five miles from its mouth, on the apex of the delta. It
may have been a good port formerly, but the beds of the deltaic rivers have
long been silted up and their outlets obstructed by shoals and sand bars.
Barros (i, ix, i) says that the coast of the kingdom of "Orixa, owing to its
roughness, has few ports, only Panacote, Calingam, Bazapdtan, Vixdopatan,
Vituilipatan, Calinhdpatan, Naciquepatan, Puluro, Panagate, and Cabo Segd-
gora'. Many early maps show at about the latitude of Cuttack (20° 29' N.)
a port named Calecota or Casecota-, sometimes another name, Casegate,
appears just on the north of Calecota.
CuLTAREY — ^This must correspond to Caleture mentioned by Barros as one
of the seven main places on the coast between S. Thome de Meliapor and
Guadavarij (Goddvari). It appears with similar names on early maps, about
14° 30' N, corresponding perhaps to Nellore {14° 27') on the Penner River
or to Allur at its mouth. However, the chief and safest natural harbour on the
Choromandel coast north of Madras is Cocanada, in 16° 57' N.
Arjamom — Aremogam in Barros and similarly on several early maps.
Corresponds to the Armagon Shoal, is*" 55' N; Blackwood harbour lies
between Armagon Shoal and the coast.
92
TOME FIRES
A junk goes from Bengal to Malacca once a year, and some-
times twice. Each of these carries from eighty to ninety thousand
cruzados worth. They bring fine white cloths, seven kinds of
sinabafos, three kinds of chautares, beatilhas^ beirames^ and other
rich materials. They will bring as many as twenty kinds. They
bring steel, very rich bed-canopies, with cut-cloth work in all
colours and very beautiful; wall hangings like tapestry; and also
sugar preserves of various kinds in great plenty: all the myro-
balans in conserve, ginger, oranges, cucumbers, carrots, rapes,
lemons, quinces, figs, pumpkins, Indian gourds and many other
fruits; some of these in vinegar. They bring an abundance of
strongly scented vases in dark clay, which are highly esteemed in
these parts and are very cheap.
These people sail four or five ships and junks to Malacca and
to Base every year, and this is still done to a large extent.
Bengali cloth fetches a high price in Malacca, because it
is a merchandise all over the East. In Malacca they pay six per
cent. They are people who know a great deal about merchandise.
From here in Malacca they use all their money and other [money]
which they take on the return [voyage] in [trade with] Bengal,
Paleacate — It is spelt thus in every chronicle and early Portuguese map.
Corresponds to Pulicat, 13“^ 25' N.
NaXor. — Aahor in Barros. Corresponds to Nagore, a port three miles north-
west of Negapatam.
Nagapatam — Negapatam. ‘The great and famous turucoV cannot be in the
town itself, where the oldest temple dates from 1777. ‘The only other con-
siderable town (in Negapatam Taluk) is Tiruvalur, noted for its temple and
the idol car belonging thereto.’ Imp. Gaz. of India, s.v. Negapatam Taluk.
‘There is (in Tiruvalur) a richly-endowed temple, which is attended by pil-
grims.’ Idem, s.v. Tiruvalur. This may be the turucol or temple referred to by
Pires. The idol on the car was annually drawn in procession through certain
parts of the city of Negapatam, this being the occasion for scenes of self-
immolation similar to those of the famous Juggurnaut festival at Puri in
Orissa.
Bonua qlim or Bonuaquelim, spelt also Benuaquelim — Bonua corresponds
to the Malay banuwa, which means land, country. Qlim, or quelim, from the
Malayalam Keling or Kling, was the name given by the Portuguese to the
natives who came from at least part of the Choromandel coast to trade or
live in Malacca. Bonuaquelim, then, means ‘Land of the Klings’. See note
p. 64.
' SiNABAFO — Shanbaff or Sinabaff. A white fine cotton cloth made in Bengal.
Chautar — A large piece of cloth, sheet or shawl, white or in colours. Beirame
Fine cotton cloth of several colours.
BENGAL 93
and make a great profit with it, which they cannot do in Pase,
except with pepper and silk.
The chief merchandise they take to Bengal is Borneo camphor Return
and pepper — an abundance of these two — cloves, mace, nut-
meg, sandalwood, silk, seed-pearls a large quantity, white porce- Malacca
lain in plenty, copper, tin, lead, quicksilver, large green porce- to Bengal.
lain ware from the Liu Kiu {Leqios), opium from Aden and some
little from Bengal, white and green damasks, enrolados^ from
China, caps of scarlet-in-grain and carpets; krises and swords
from Java are also appreciated.
Every merchant who goes to Bengal has to pay three on every
eight, and they consider that this unreasonable tax is a right
thing, because these goods are of so much value in the country, Bengal.
and the things they take back are of such high value and so small
in bulk, that they affirm that when the goods are brought safely
into harbour and sold, the profit on one is from two and a half to
three.
They leave here at the beginning of August and they reach Fol. igsr.
Bengal in thirty days; they stay there trading; they leave there on
the first of February and they take as long again to Malacca. thTmon-
When they want to insult a man they call him a Bengalee. They soon.
are very treacherous; they are very sharpwitted. There are a
large number of Bengalees, men and women, in Malacca. The
men are fishers and tailors — most of them — and some of the
workmen do very bad work.
Gold is worth a sixth part more in Bengal than in Malacca and Coinage
silver is a fifth part cheaper than in Malacca, and sometimes a
quarter cheaper. The silver coinage is called tanqat. It weighs which
half a tael, which is nearly six drams. This coin is worth twenty they
calains in Malacca, and seven cahon in Bengal. Each cahon is
worth sixteen pon\ each pon is worth eighty cowries {buzeos)\ so
that a cahon is worth one thousand two hundred and eighty
cowries, and a tancat is worth eight thousand nine hundred and
sixty cowries, [at the rate of cowries] four hundred and forty
' Enrolado. This word is very frequent in the chronicles, and some Portu-
guese dictionaries record it as meaning ‘a kind of old Indian cloth’ or ‘a sort
of woollen cloth’. Dalgado {s.v.) was unable to discover the nature of this
cloth or the reason for the name. Resende mentions 'enrrollados which are
thin like bofetas' (a kind of zephyr fabric). Ltvro do Estado da India, fol. 32 ir.
tom£ pires
94
Where
these
cowries
are valid
and
current
coinage.
eight to the calaim^ which is the price for which they give a good
chicken, and from this you can tell what you could buy for them.
In Bengal the cowries are called curyK
Cowries are current coinage in Orissa and in all the kingdom
of Bengal, and Arakan (Raqa), and in Martaban {MartamaneY,
" Tanqat — The word tucka or taka is still usual in Bengal for a rupee. From
the Sanskrit tankaka, ‘stamped silver money’.
Calaim — Calay, meaning tin in the Orient. Although generally used in this
sense, it was also used as meaning a tin coin. Referring to the seizure of
Malacca by Albuquerque in 1511, Barros (ii, vi, vi) says that ‘there were no
other coins there but those of tin’. When describing the currency in the
Cuama River (Zambeze, in Mozambique) Fr. Joao dos Santos writes: ‘Tin is
also currency: they call it calaim, which is shaped into loaves, each weighing
half an arratel, and they call these pondos\ each of these pondos is worth two
tangos, which are worth six vintens.' Ethiopia Oriental, i, ii, viii. Pires say
later on, when dealing with Pegu coinage, that ‘The calaim is worth eleven
reais and four cetis’; and when dealing with Sunda coinage he speaks of ‘three
hundred calaimsy which are nine cruzados’, making the calaim equal to twelve
reais or reis\ this he confirms when dealing with the Malacca coinage.
Cahon — Kahan. Cowry tables dated about 1778 and 1854 show the
following values — ‘4 kauris = i ganda; 20 gandas = i pan; 4 pan = i ana;
4 anas = I kahan.’ Hobson- Jobson, s.v. Cowry. This table of values agrees
exactly with those given by Pires.
PoN or pone — Pan, the old Bengali designation for eighty cowries, from the
Sanskrit pana, ‘to barter’, whence the Malayalam and Tamil pa'^am, ‘money’,
and, according to Hobson-Jobson (r.t). Fandm), and Dalgado (r.w. Fanao
and Pone), thefanam or fanao, an old gold or silver coin used in India at least
until the last century. Nunes (p. 37) says that the Cauryns'&re current in Bengal,
80 cauryns make one pone: 40 to 50 pones are given for one tangua larym.’
Dealing with the ‘Weights in China’, Pires asserts that the picoll contains a
hundred cates, the cate sixteen taels, the tael ten mazes and the maz ten pons.
Buzeo or cury — Cowry or kauri. Castanheda (iv, xxxv) says: ‘There are in
these islands (Maldives) . . . small white shells (buzios) which are called
courts, that serve as small currency in Bengal, because they are cleaner than
the copper, which they say soils the hands.’
The transcribers of the Paris and Lisbon MSS, as well as Ramusio, all
made the same rather careless mistake, in saying that the tankat is worth 8970
buzeos. Ramusio makes a further mistake when he says that the calaim is
worth 458 buzeos.
* Martaniane further on; Martabane in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
It appears as martabane in the Cantino map, as Martauao in several middle
sixteenth-century Portuguese maps, and as cidade de martabam in L.
Homem’s map of 1554. Although the usual form in the sixteenth-century
chronicles was Martabam, Giovanni da Empoli, a contemporary of Pires, in
a letter of 1514 wrote also Martaman. Archivio Storico Italiano, in, Appen-
dice, p. 54. Firenze, 1846. ‘This is the conventional name for a port on the
east of the Irawadi Delta and of the Sitang estuary, formerly of great trade,
but now in comparative decay’, in Burma. Hobsom-Jobson, s.v. Martaban.
ARAKAN
95
a port of the kingdom of Pegu. The Bengal cowries are larger,
with a yellow stripe in the middle; they are valid throughout
Bengal and they accept them for a larger number of commodities
as they would gold; and in Orissa. They are not valid anywhere
else and they are highly prized in these two places. We will speak
about those of Pegu and Arakan when we talk of these places.
These selected [cowries] come from the Maidive {Diua) Islands
in large quantities.
The Bengal balance is called a dala^. This is a branch of wood Method of
without scales, and they tie the goods to the ends, and it is done weighing.
like that. And with the merchants, if you take a balance, they
work out the accounts, and so you do your trading. They say
that ten or twelve people collect the dues, each one his own,
and they are the officials for this, and that when they take
their tithe they wrong the merchants and tyrannise over them
greatly.
The Bengalees merchants say that this king of Bengal, who is
called Sultan Vfem Xaa^, is not benevolent to the merchants,
and that many of them are going to other places. This king has
twenty-four sons by his concubines, and many daughters.
[arakan]
The kingdom of Arakan is between Bengal and Pegu. The Kingdom
king is a heathen and very powerful in the hinterland. It has a
good port on the sea, where the Peguans, the Bengalees and the ^
Klings trade, but not much business. The port is called Myo-
^ Zhia in the Lisbon MS; dalla in Ramusio. The Sanskrit ddl means ‘to
divide’. ^Ddli [Hindi]. A tray, or a couple of trays, fastened by slings to each
end of a pole, carried over the shoulders.’ G. C. Whitworth, An Anglo-
Indian Dictionary. According to D’Rozario’s Dictionary a balance is palld in
Bengali.
^ Soltdo bamxar in the Lisbon MS; Soltam vamxoa in Ramusio. In this
case, as in many others, we can hardly imagine what Fires originally wrote,
or what he heard, and how he wrote it down. This V(em Xaa may be
one of ‘the very powerful heathens whose generation are now called vene-
zaras’ (Orta, x), identified by Ficalho (i, 129-30) and Yule {Hobson-Jobson
s.v. Brinjarry) as Banjaras, Vanjaras or Brinjarries, people who usually move
about carrying their cattle and goods to different markets. The king or sultan
of Bengal was also known as Alauddin Husain Shah in Fires’ time.
Where
the musk
and fine
rubies
come
from.
Fol. I 35 V.
Cowries
are
current
in this
kingdom
96 TOM^ PIRES
haung {Mayajerijy. Near this port the king has an adobe
fortress, which for them is strong.
There are many horsemen in the land of Arakan and many
elephants. There is some silver. There are three or four kinds of
cotton cloth, which the natives wear. They are cloths of their
manner and dressing, and there are more there than in other
places, and people go there for them.
The kingdom of Arakan is bounded far in the hinterland by
the great mountain range which is called Capelanguam^, where
there are many places inhabited by a not very civilised people.
These people bring the musk and rubies to the great city of
Ava3 which is the chief thing in the kingdom of Arakan, and
from there they go to Pegu, and from Pegu they are distributed
1 to Bengal, Narsinga and to Pase and Malacca. The mine for the
said rubies is in the Capelamgua, [and they are] the best there
are in these parts. The musk comes from animals such as goats.
They flay them and the flesh is pounded up with the blood.
From the skins they make the little bags we call papos*\ and this
is the truth about musk, and it does not come from apostemes,
and if you look at them closely you will find many that still have
bones.
The coinage of this country is capa, that is fruseleira^ in
* Malagery (?) in the Lisbon MS; Maiarani in Ramusio. This must be
Myohaung, in the Akyab District of the Arakan division of Burma. 'Myo-
haung Village (‘Old town’), formerly the capital of the ancient kingdom of
Arakan. The ruins of the fort are still in existence.’ Imp. Gaz. India, s.v.
2 Capelamgam in the Lisbon MS; Capelangam in Ramusio. ‘This is a name
which was given by several sixteenth-century travellers to the mountain in
Burma from which the rubies purchased at Pegu were said to come.’ Hobson-
Jobson, s.v. Capelan. Capelam in Barbosa. Yule refers to ‘Capelang, the Ruby
country north of Ava, a name preserved to a much later date, but not now
traceable’. Cathay, i, 177.
3 Ava. ‘The name of the city which was for several centuries the capital of
the Burmese Empire.’ Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Ava.
The expression ‘papos de almiscar' — ^pods or ‘craws’ of musk — was current
in India. It is mentioned in the Roteiro de Vasco da Gama (1498), p. 1 12.
s When describing the Pegu coinage, Pires says that the fresuleira or canfa
of copper and tin is better than that of copper, tin and lead, and the worst is
copper and lead. When he deals with China, the word is spelt fuseleira. Nunes
(p. 38) writes: ‘In Pegu there is no coined money, and what they use commonly
consists of dishes, pans, and other domestic utensils, made of a metal like
frosyleyra, broken in pieces; and this is called gamga.' ‘In Pegu they do not
mint coins, the currency being some old pans which they have used, and
Mercharim
dise that
conies
from
Pegu to
Malacca
and to
Pase.
The
duties
they pay
in
Malacca.
Return
from
Malacca
to Pegu.
98 TOME FIRES
with a large city and many merchants. The Toledam of it is
greater than the others. The junks are made in this port because
of the amount of good wood there. The other port is distant
from Martaban; the people of Malacca and those of Pase go there,
and it is also a good large city with merchants. The common
people of this kingdom are naughty in their own country and
outside it they are peaceable, good workers, simple folk.
The principal [merchandise] is rice. There come every year to
these two places and to Pedir fifteen to sixteen junks, twenty to
thirty cargo pangajauas } like ships. They bring a great deal of
lac and benzoin, musk, [precious] stones (?), rubies, silver,
butter, oil, salt, onions, garlic, mustard ( ?)^ and things to eat like
that. They leave in February and arrive at the end of March and
during the whole of April. They are men who sell their goods
peaceably, according to the custom of the country. Seven or
eight merchants value the merchandise, and they abide by this
and sell it.
Neither in Malacca nor in Pase are any duties paid on any
foodstuffs, but they are given as a courtesy, because they are so
accustomed in the country. On the rest they pay six per cent.
There is great profit in bringing rice and lac and all the rest of
it from Pegu to Malacca.
The chief thing is coarse china of various kinds and orna-
mented in red, a great deal of quicksilver, copper, vermilion,
damask, dark enrolados with flowers — which come straight from
River as a branch of a large delta corresponding to the present Irawadi,
Rangoon, Pegu and Sitang rivers, the whole under the name of Cosmim or
Rio Cosmim, as appears more clearly on Eredia’s map of the Bay of Bengal
(fol. 73). This is why Castanheda, in another place, says that ‘a city called
Cosmim, the port of Pegu, lies eighteen leagues up a river on which lies Pegii
ninety leagues from the sea’ (iv, v). It is obvious that he is confusing Cosmin
with the ancient Dagon or Rangoon. Correia (ii, 474) makes the same mis-
take. Pinto (cxc) mentions in the same sentence the town of Cosmim and the
river of Digum (Dagon) as quite distinct. The map of Fra Mauro records
Chesmi. The earliest Portuguese map in which I find Cosmj is the anonymous
one of c. 1540.
Dogo — Dagon, the original name of Rangoon. In the Lisbon MS it is
written Degoni. It appears as Digum in Pinto’s Peregrinagao, cxc.
' Pangajaua, or pangajava, from the MdlayaXam. penjajap. It was an ancient
Malayan man of war, long and of shallow draught.
2 This word mostarda (.^), difficult to read in the Paris MS, was suppressed
in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
PEGU
99
China for them because they are of no use for others — quanti-
ties oitmjreseleira, some in broken pieces and some whole (?),
especially that which is coinage. And they take an infinity of
different kinds of china, seed-pearls, a little gold— they spend all
their money, and more if they had it, on this some cloves,
nutmeg, mace, nothing much. They leave here on the first of
July and go to Pase to load up with pepper and in August they
go to Martaban.
The duties which the said merchants pay in Pegu are twelve Duties
per cent, and none of these are remitted. If you have to speak to they pay
the governor, you must take a present, and that is the custom in
Malacca: you have to pay a bribe according to what the affair is.
The port of Martaban is dangerous. There are pilots of the bar
who guarantee to take you safely in, if you pay them according
to the custom of the country. They do not go in at full tide nor
at low tide; they take it midway for safety.
The coinage of Pegu, which is used in trading is freseleira, Fol. is^r.
which is called canfa. Some of this fruseleira is better and some
is less good. Fruseleira of copper and tin is better than that of coinage.
copper, tin and lead, and the worst is that of copper and lead.
The conga of Martaban is the best. This is current throughout
the country at ten calains, three arrates and five ounces to the
viga, which is a cate and a half on the big scales of Malacca.
These are according to the new weight, and the other is worth
less. The calaim is worth eleven reals and four ceitis, at the rate
of a hundred calains to three cruzados^.
* Arrates — The arratel (pi. arrdteis) is an old Portuguese weight equivalent
first to 14 and then to 16 ounces. See note p. 277.
Vi?A — A weight used in Southern India and Burma, the value of which is
given as from 40 ounces (Nunes, Castanheda, Bocarro, etc.) to 53 ounces.
Yule {Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Viss) says that ‘in Burma the t«« = ioo tikals =
3 lbs. 5 5I’, which is about the value given by Pires.
Cate — The cate or catty is a variable weight introduced from China into
Malacca and now fixed at 625 grammes, or 22.9 ounces. The Portuguese
considered it as equal to 20 or 28 ounces, but some authors even go as low
as 4 ounces, or as high as 30^ ounces. The cate here indicated by Pires would
be equal to 35.34 ounces; but further on, under the title ‘Coinage and weights
used in Pegu’ and ‘Coinage and weights used in Pase’, he says that 5 cates are
equal to 12 arrdteis, which makes the cate equal to 38.4 ounces. When dealing
with the Malacca weights and measures Pires says that ‘the cate for merchan-
dise weighs . . . 32I ounces and 25 grains’.
100
Value of
the vi9a <
can9a.
Gold and
silver
coinage.
Small
currency.
TOM^ PIRES
A vifa of the said canga is worth ten calains; so you say ‘How
many vigas of such and such merchandise will you give me for a
viga of cangaV, or ‘How many vigas of conga do you want for a
viga of such and such merchandise?’. And each of these vigas
contains a hundred tiquas^. These hundred tiquas are worth as
much as a viga.
The silver is in rounds marked with the mark of Siam, because
it all comes from there. The piece in the round is called caturna^.
The weight of it is a tael and a half which is two ounces and one
eighth; and in Pegu one quarto is worth four vigas and a half,
and this side of Malacca it is worth a tael of timas^ which is
sixty-four'^ calains. Gold has the same value in Pegu as it has in
Malacca. A great deal of silver is taken from Pegu to Bengal,
where it is worth somewhat more.
The small currency of Pegu is small white cowries. In Marta-
ban fifteen thousand are usually worth one viga, which is ten
calains', when they are cheap sixteen thousand; when they are
very dear fourteen thousand, and generally fifteen thousand. A
calaim is worth one thousand five hundred. For four hundred or
five hundred they will give a chicken, and things of that sort for
the same price. If [you are] in Pegu the said cowries are not
valid except in Martaban, and they are valid in the same way in
Arakan. The cowries come from the Maidive {Diva) Islands,
where they make large quantities of towels, and they also
come from the islands of Baganga^ and of Borneo {Burney),
and they bring them to Malacca and from here they go to
Pegu.
Cruzado— An old Portuguese gold (later silver) coin worth 390 reais in
Pires’ time. However, according to Pires’ account it seems to be equal to 375
reais. The cruzado of Pires’ time would be worth about 285 Escudos, or about
£2 17s. today. Cf. Azevedo, iSpocas de Portugal Econdmico, p. 488.
> Tiqua — ‘The quasi-standard weight of (uncoined) current silver’ in Burma.
A little more than three eighths of an ounce. Hobson-jfobson and Dalgado s.v.
Tical.
2 This sentence has been left out in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
3 Further on, when dealing with the Malacca coinage, Pires says that
timas means tin.
* Eighty-four in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
5 Bamgamjam in the Lisbon MS; Bandam in Ramusio. Perhaps one of the
small islands Balambangan or Banguey, the town of Bongon, or the port of
Jabongon on the north coast of Borneo. See p. 522.
PEGU
lOI
The bahar by the dachim} of Martaban is less than that of Weights
Malacca by twenty cates. The Martaban one contains a hundred
and twenty vifos which are a hundred and eighty cates, and the
Malacca one contains two hundred, and these cates are accord-
ing to the big scales. Rice is measured by toos. Each tom con-
tains ten Malacca tested in the country.
One Gujarat ship comes to the port of Martaban and of Dagon Gujarat
{Doguo) every year. They bring these goods; copper, vermilion,
quicksilver, opium, cloth; and they take a large quantity of lac
which is cheap in the country — sometimes four vifas the bahar,
sometimes five and six and seven; and they take benzoin, silver,
[precious] stones and go back, and sometimes they are wrecked
on the bar.
The king is always in residence in the city of Pegu, which is King and
inland, and from the city to the port of Dagon (Dagam) is a day
and night’s journey, to Martaban four and to Cosmin {Coximjm)
eight days. Next to the king in importance is the Braja^^ who is
* It seems that dachim, datchin or dachem was a steelyard or balance, but it
was taken also as meaning a weight (loo cates in Javanese). According to
Nunes (p. 39), at Malacca ‘The haar of the great Dachem contains 200 cates,
each cate weighing 2 arrdteis, 4 ounces, 5 eighths, 15 grains, 3 tenths. . . . The
baar of the little Dachem contains 200 cates; each cate weighing 2 arrdteis’.
Marsden says that in Achin, for the payments in gold dust ‘one is provided
with small seals or steelyards, called daching’. History of Sumatra, p. 401.
Further on, when dealing with the weights and measures of Malacca, Pires
says that he verified the dachim and that it ‘weighed exactly three quintals,
three arrobas and twenty-six arrdteis’ (pp. 277-8).
* Toos — The mercal or mercar, a grain measure in use in the Madras
Presidency, is also known as toom. Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Mercall. Nunes (pp.
36, 59) refers to the mercar as a rice measure in Negapatam, of variable
capacity, but now estimated at 2.6 litres.
Ganta — The guanta, ganta or ganton is a measure of capacity in Malaya.
Several sixteenth-century Portuguese writers give its value as a Portuguese
Canada (1.4 litres), but Nunes says that it was a rice measure equivalent to
five quartilhos (1.75 litres, the quartilho being a fourth of a Canada) in Malacca.
Ibid. pp. 39, 40. Further on, when dealing with the weights and measures of
Malacca, Pires says he found that the rice contained in one ganta 'weighed
three arrdteis and ten ounces of the new measure’. See notes p. 181 and 277.
As the Pegu toom mentioned by Pires contained ten Malacca gantas, it was
about three times larger than the Negapatam toom or mercar. The ganton or
gantong is still a measure of capacity in Malaya, equivalent to a gallon (4.543
litres) today. N. B. Dennys, A Descriptive Dictionary of British Malaya,
p.419.
3 Cobrajem in the Lisbon MS; Cobrai in Ramusio.
102
Custom of
the lords
and other
people.
Fol. ij 6 v
Physical
appear-
ance and
dress of
the Pegu
men and
women.
TOME FIRES
his captain and governor of the kingdom, and next the Toledam
of Dagon, and next the one of Martaban and next the one of
Xoi] ^ He has a large number of elephants — there must be six
or seven thousand in the whole kingdom.
All the lords of Pegu, and the other people according to their
wealth, make a habit of wearing little round bells in their privy
parts. The lords wear as many as nine gold ones, with beautiful
treble, contralto and tenor tones, the size of the alvares plums^
in our country; and those who are too poor | to have them in
gold and silver have them in lead and fruseleira\ and the gold and
silver ones make much more noise than these other lead and
fruseleira ones^.
The men of Pegu are of medium height. They are on the
stout side, stunted, and good workers with great strength. They
are always shorn all round, leaving the hair growing in the
middle of the head and longer on the top. Their teeth are always
' Pesim in the Lisbon MS; Pizim in Ramusio. Perhaps Pires wrote or
intended Cosmim.
^ A Portuguese variety of Prunus domestica Linn.
3 Barbosa refers to this extraordinary practice with further details, ending
however with these words: ‘I say no more of this on account of its indecency.’
II, 154. Galvao also mentions it: ‘They haue delight to carrie round bels
within the skin of their priuie members, which is forbidden to the king and
the religious people.’ Hak. Soc. ed., p. 113. In Garcia de Resende’s Mis-
cellanea there is this stanza:
‘There is also this custom
in Pegu, that men vie [with each other
as to] which of them shall have
most bells in their privy member,
where they insert them,
cutting open their flesh,
and this healing up in time,
they remain fixed inside:
they say that they are better liked
by the women through this practice.’ — St. 88.
Even Camoens in the Lusiadas alludes to this Pegu custom:
‘Here sounding metal in their parts unseen
They fit, a trick invented by the Queen
Who, by this method, as she did intend,
To the accursed error put an end.’ — Canto x, St. 122.
Pigafetta also gives a curious description of this practice, with most extra-
ordinary details, but refers it to Java, a place to which he never went,
evidently mistaking it for Pegu. Robertson’s edition, ii, 169. It seems that
the practice — if it ever existed and was not ‘a mere figment of imagination’
— has never been recorded by any modern writer.
SIAM
103
black with betel. They wear a great deal of white cloth round
their thighs, and white cloth [round] their heads — almost like a
mitre.
The women are fairer than the men are. They are of body The
beautiful, less shy, and wear their hair in the Chinese fashion,
as we shall tell in the description of China. Our Malay women
rejoice greatly when the Pegu men come to their country, and
they are very fond of them. The reason for this must be their
sweet harmony. Certainly they are much esteemed by them, and
not without cause. These people are peaceable and well dis-
posed here in Malacca. They say that in their own country they
are proud.
As, in accordance with the arrangement of this book, we
shall pass through Siam on the way to Malacca, it is right that
we should speak of it, although we shall come upon it again on
the China side at the river of Odia^.
[siam]
There are three ports in the kingdom of Siam on the Pegu Kingdom
side, and on the Pahang and Champa side there are many. They
all belong to the said kingdom and are subject to the king of
Siam. The land of Siam is large and very plenteous, with many
people and cities, with many lords and many foreign merchants,
and most of these foreigners are Chinese, because Siam does a
great deal of trade with China. The land of Malacca is called a
land of Siam, and the whole of Siam, Champa and thereabouts
is called China.
The kingdom of Siam is heathen. The people, and almost the
language, are like those of Pegu. They are considered to be
prudent folk of good counsel. The merchants know a great deal
about merchandise. They are tall, swarthy men, shorn like those
of Pegu. The kingdom is justly ruled. The king is always in
' Odia or Ayuthia, former capital of Siam, was destroyed by the Burmese
in 1767, after a two years’ siege. Barros writes Odia and Hudid. Couto (vi,
vii> 9) gives an interesting description of ‘the city of Odia, the principal of
the kingdom of Siam, which lies forty leagues up the river’ (Menam Chao
Phaya). Odia was sometimes ca]led Judea or ludia. Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Judea.
FoL i37r.
Duties
and
coinage
in Siam.
104 TOME FIRES
residence in the city of Odia. He is a hunter. He is very ceremon-
ious with strangers; he is more free and easy with the natives. He
has many wives, upwards of five hundred. On the death [of the
king] it has as king a person of the blood [royal], usually a
nephew, the son of a sister, if he is suitable, and if not there are
sometimes agreements and assemblies [to decide] who will be
the best. Secrets are closely kept among them. They are very
reserved. They speak with well-taught modesty. The important
men are very obedient to the king. Their ambassadors carry out
their instructions thoroughly.
Through the cunning [of the Siamese] the foreign merchants
who go to their land and kingdom leave their merchandise in the
land and are ill paid; and this happens to them all — but less to
the Chinese, on account of their friendship with the king of
China. And for this reason less people go to their port than
would [otherwise] go. However, as the land is rich in good
merchandise, they bear some things on account of the profit, as
often happens to merchants, because otherwise there would be
no trading.
There are very few Moors in Siam. The Siamese do not like
them. There are, however, Arabs, Persians, Bengalees, many
Kling, Chinese and other nationalities. And all the Siamese trade
is on the China side, and in Pase, Pedir and Bengal. The Moors
are in the seaports. They are obedient to their own lords, and
constantly make war on the Siamese, now inland and now in
Pahang. They are not very warlike fighting men. The said
Siamese wear bells like the men of Pegu, and no less but just as
many. The lords wear pointed diamonds and other precious
stones in their privy parts in addition to the bells — a precious
stone worn is according to the person or his estate.
The foreign merchants in Siam pay two on every nine, and
the Chinese pay two on every twelve. The bahar weighs the
same as it does in China, neither more nor less. The Siamese
gold and silver cate is equivalent to a Malacca cate and a half.
Cowries, like those current in Pegu, are current throughout the
country for small money, and gold and silver for the larger
coins. This money is worth the same as we have said for Pegu.
And there seems to be no doubt that they pay one in fifteen on
SIAM
105
the goods going out, because the truth is that they pay duties of
two in ten on everything in Siam.
The nearest to the land of Pegu, to Martaban, is Tenasserim Ports in
(Tenaparj) and then Junkseylon {Juncalom) and then Trang
{Terrdmy and Kedah {Quedaa), and it is a port of the kingdom ^^^^rds
of Kedah which is tributary to it. And from Kedah to Malacca Malacca
they are all tin places, as we have already said in the kingdom ^
and district of Malacca.
This had to be [mentioned] before we speak of Kedah, so that Pons in
it should be in order.
Beginning from Pahang {Pahdao) and Trengganu {Talim-
gano), Kelantam {Clamtam), Say, Patani {Patane), l^dkon the China
(Lugor), Martard, Callnansey, Bamcha, Cotinuo, Peperim, Pam-
goray'^, are all ports belonging to lords of the land of Siam, and
' All fol. i37r. of the Paris MS was left out in the Lisbon MS and in
Ramusio; so these names cannot be collated as in other instances.
Juncalom — Junkseylon, an island and old port off the west coast of the
Malay Peninsula. It is referred to by Galvao and Pinto, and appears for the
first time in Diogo Homem’s atlas of 1558 as jusala.
Terram — Trang, Tarang or Klong Trang, a river, port and town further
south, in y"' 18' lat. N. It is mentioned by Barros (i, ix, 1) as Torrao. The map
of c. 1540 has toram. Some cartographers, as Dourado, placed torao south of
Kedah; on the maps of D. Homem and Berthelot toraque or Torram is also
south of Kedah. In this case they meant perhaps the present Trong, in 4° 40',
which appears on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 34) as Pio do trom, i.e. Kuala Larut,
bounded by Singa Besar Island on the north and Trong Island on the south.
^ Later on, under the heading ‘King and Lords of the kingdom of Siam’,
the names of these ports are written as follows: ‘pahamj talimganoj chantan-
sayl patane j lugoumaij taram calndsey banq^ chotomuj pepory pamgoray' .
Barros (i, ix, i) says that along the coast up to the river Menao (Menam or
Bangkok) there are the following notable towns: 'Pdo, which is the capital of
the kingdom so called, Ponticao, Calantao, Patane, Lugor, Cuy, Perperij, and
Bamplacot, which lies at the mouth of the river Menao. ’ He also mentions the
following ‘towns which are sea ports’ from Hudid (Bangkok) towards
Malacca: ‘Pangogay, Lugo, Patane, Calantam, Talingano or Talinganor, and
Pam\ III, ii, 5.
Clamtam — Corresponds to Kota Bharu, at the entrance of the Kelantan
River. The Calantao or Calantam mentioned by Barros. Dourado’s atlas of
1580 has R° de calamtao, which is found also on later maps.
Say — Corresponds to Saiburi at the entrance of the Telubin River, in
6° 42' lat. N. The 1554 map of L. Homem has sera patane north of calatam\
in D. Homem’s atlas of 1558 there is r. serra between catata and patane, and
tei in Dourado’s atlases. Then it appears again on an Eredia map (fol. 27) as
Sea. Rio, between calantan Rio and PATANE-, the atlas of c. 1615-23 has
Sea between calantam and patane-, Berthelot’s map of 1635 has Sey between
River of
Kedah
(Quedaa).
I06 TOME FIRES
some of these are kings. They all have junks; these do not belong
to the king of Siam, but to the merchants and the lords of the
places; and after these ports there is the river of Odta, where
they go up to the city — a river where boats and ships can go,
wide and beautiful.
Kedah is a very small kingdom, with few people and few
houses. It is up a river. There is pepper there, a matter of four
hundred bahars a year. This pepper goes by way of Siam to
China, with that which they bring from Pase and Pedir also.
When any ship comes to Tenasserim and to the ports of Siam,
it comes to Kedah to sell its merchandise also, and the people
from the tin districts buy and take gold, because Kedah is a
trading country; and they get to the land of Siam in three or four
days by land, and they take the merchandise from Kedah to Siam.
The kingdom of Kedah is almost bounded on one side by
Trang {Terrdo), and on the other by the end of the kingdom of
R. de calantam and Patane. J. V. Mills says that the ‘Sai River’, as it appears
on an ancient Chinese Wu-Pei-Chih chart, ‘represents what is now called the
Telubin River. The earliest European map to mark the river is that of
Homem (1558) who calls it “Seiia” [a misreading for r. serra as noted above].
Similar names appear on all the maps on which the river is named, down to
at least 1850: the name “Telubin” does not appear until after that date’.
Malaya in the Wu-Pei-Chih Charts, p. 36. However, the name survived in
Saiburi.
Lugor — Lakon roadstead and town. The map of c. 1540 has logor.
Martara — The next important port to the north is Bandon. But still
further north there is an islet called Matra near the coast, in 10° 24' lat.
N., southeast of M. Chum Pon. Is this connected with Pires’ Martara}
Callnansey — Bang Kamma Sen, a small village on the coast, in n“ 2'
lat. N.?
Bamcha — Bang-taphang or Bang Sabhan, in ii*’ 12' lat. N.? Banagh in the
Mohit. Pinto mentions several times this town or port of Banchd.
CoTiNUX — Further on called Chotomuj. Koh Ta kut, in 12° 15' lat. N.?
Peperim — Pechabury river and town. The Perperij of Barros. Perpji on the
map of c. 1540, and Peiper on Berthelot’s map. On several later maps it
appears as Piperi (see maps in L. Fournereau, Le Siam Ancien). On an early
sixteenth-century Portuguese map by Miranda (in Aires, Ferndo Mendes
Pinto e 0 Japdo) it is Piper, corresponding to the town of Pechabury, in
13'" 6' lat. N. On the map published by Bowring, The Kingdom and People of
Siam, end of vol. ii, it still appears as Phiphri, on the north of the entrance
of the river Pechabury in 13° 16'.
Pamgoray — This must be the Pangopay mentioned by Barros as the first
port when going from Bangkok to Malacca. Pangopay was identified as Bang
Plassoy by Campos, Early Portuguese Accounts of Thailand, p. 1 1.
SIAM
107
Malacca and by Bruas {Baruazy. Kedah trades with Base and
Pedir, and the people of Pase and Pedir come to Kedah every
year. One ship comes from Gujarat to the ports of Siam, and
comes to Kedah and takes in a cargo of the pepper there is in the
country, and from there it sometimes goes back to Pase and
Pedir to finish taking in its cargo, and it takes the tin from
Bruas, Selangor {(^alamgor) and Mjmjam^.
Kedah is under the jurisdiction of the king of Siam, and they
go to Siam by the Kedah river. Kedah has rice in quantities, and
pepper. A great deal of merchandise from China is used in
Kedah; and Kedah does not have junks, it has lancharas. It is a
country. It does good trade. Because of their proximity, cloth in
Kedah is worth the same as in Malacca.
Now we will go on to Siam on the China side, and after having
finished talking about Siam, and about some of its ports, we will
enter into the kingdom of Cambodia.
There is a great abundance of rice in Siam, and much salt, Merchan-
dried salt fish, oraquas^, vegetables; and up to thirty junks a year
used to come to Malacca with these.
used to
* The mouth of the river Bruas or Sungi Bruas is in 4° 28' lat. N. One of the come to
villages near the sea is called Pengkalen Bahru today, and higher up the river Malacca
there is a village of Bruas. Pires says later, when describing Baruaz, that in
the "Baruaz river there are two inhabited places (povoafoes)’. Pinto (cxliv) time when
states that in 1544 he ‘saw all the coast of the Malay, which is 130 leagues
(from Malacca) to Jungalao, entering all the rivers of Barruhds, Salangor, traded
Pandgim, Quedd, Paries, Peddo, and Samhilad Siad’. Dealing with Malacca, tvith it.
in 1614, Bocarro (xliv) mentions Barvas. The map of c. 1540 has broes, be- Pood-
tween queda and pulo cabilam\ L. Homem’s map of 1554 has baruas between stuffs,
pemdam (Penang) and pulo sambilam (Sembilan); Dourado’s atlases and other
Portuguese maps have baruas between tor am (Trang) and p. sambilad-, Eredia’s
map of the Malay Peninsula (fol. 27) has baruas immediately north of a
cape corresponding to the Bindings; the Atlas of Janssonius (1658) still has
Baruas. The Malacca Strait Pilot says that ‘Sungi Bruas is a small river
fronted by the mudbank extending from s to 9 miles off-shore’ but navigable
by canoes for nearly 60 miles. It appears that the former port of Baruas or
Bruas disappeared through silting.
^ Mjmjam — The map of c. 1540 has micham immediately north of cdlagor
(Selangor, in 3° 2i')- The name still survives in Mehegan Point, the south
point of the mouth of Binding River (4° 14') which ‘has a deep and clear
entrance and is said to be navigable by vessels drawing 1 5 feet (4™ 6) ... a
distance of about 7 miles’. Malacca Strait Pilot. See below, p. 261.
s Arrack, here the distilled spirit from a palm. In some instances Pires seems
to mean the palm-tree itself.
io8
TOM^ PIRES
Merchan-
dise.
Fol. T 3 JV.
Merchan-
dise from
Malacca
for Siam.
How long
it is that
the Sia-
mese have
not been
coming to
Malacca.
Where the
Simese
trade
now.
From Siam comes lac, benzoin, brazib, lead, tin, silver, gold,
ivory, cassia fistula; they bring vessels of cast copper and gold,
ruby and diamond rings; they bring a large quantity of cheap,
coarse Siamese cloth for the poor people.
They say that the chief merchandise they take from Malacca to
Siam are the male and female slaves, which they take in quanti-
ties, white sandalwood, pepper, quicksilver, vermilion, opium,
azernefe, cloves, mace, nutmeg, wide and narrow muslins, and
Kling cloths in the fashion of Siam, camlets, rosewater, carpets,
brocades from Cambay, white cowries, wax, Borneo camphor,
pachak which are roots like dry rampion, gall-nuts (gualkas), and
the merchandise they bring from China every year is also of
value there.
The Siamese have not traded in Malacca for twenty-two
years. They had a difference because the kings of Malacca owed
allegiance to the kings of Siam, because they say that Malacca
belongs to the land of Siam — They say that it is theirs and that
twenty-two years ago this king lost Malacca, which rose up
against this subjection. They also say that Pahang rose against
Siam in the same way, and that, on account of the relationship
between them, the kings of Malacca favoured the people of
Pahang against the Siamese, and that this was also a reason for
their disagreement.
They also say that it was about the tin districts which are on
the Kedah side, and which were originally under Kedah, and
were taken over by Malacca; and they quarrelled for all these
reasons, and they say that the chief reason was the revolt against
subjection. After this the Siamese sailed against Malacca, and
the Siamese were routed by the Malays, and [they say] that the
Lasamane was the captain — who has therefore been held in
great honour ever since.
The Siamese trade in China — six or seven junks a year. They
trade with Sunda and Palembang (Palmbaao) and other islands.
They trade with Cambodia and Champa and Cochin China
* Brazil-wood or sappan-wood, Caesalpinia Sappan Linn. In his descrip-
tion of Malacca, Resende refers to ‘some sapam, which is a red wood for dyes
not much inferior to that of Brazil’. Livro do Estado da India, fol. 377v. Two
of the most important Brazilian species are Caesalpinia Brasiliensis Linn.,
and C. echinata Lam.
SIAM 109
{Caughy\ and with Burma {Brema) and Jangoma^ on the main
land, when they are at peace.
On the Tenasserim side Siam also trades with Base, Pedir,
with Kedah, with Pegu, with Bengal; and the Gujaratees come
to its port every year. They trade richly outside and liberally
inside the country, but they are great tyrants.
King Prechayoa^ means lord of all, and after the king the Aja King and
Capetit^ is the viceroy on the Pegu and Cambodia side, and makes
war on Burma {Bremao) and Jangoma. This Aja Capetit has
many fighting men. Inside his own territory he is like the king of Siam.
this land.
The second is the viceroy of Lakon {Loguor). He is called
Poyohya (P)^. He is governor from Pahang to Odia\ Pahang
* Cauchy, Cauchij or Cauchy Chyna — Cochin China, called by the Malays
Kucki, whence the Portuguese Cauchi and Cochinchina. Cf. Hobson-Jobson.
On the eastern part of the Cantino map there is champocochim and china-
cockim. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 38) has cofhim da fhina at the head of a long and
narrow gulf. See note on Champa (p. 1 12).
Brema — Burma. Mentioned by Barbosa and other sixteenth-century
Portuguese writers as Berma.
Jangoma — Mentioned by several sixteenth-century Portuguese writers.
‘The town and state of Siamese Laos, called by the Burmese Zimme, by the
Siamese Xieng-mai or Kiang-mai, See.' Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Jangomay.
® Rey pchayoa or prechayoa. Perchoaa in the Lisbon MS; Perchoa in
Ramusio. This might suggest King Phrachai or Prajai; but he reigned after
1534. In Pires’ time the king of Siam was Rama Tibodi II, who died in 1529.
Phra — ‘it is addressed at court to the king,’ in Burma and Siam. It is
supposed to be a corruption of Skt. prabhu, an honorific title meaning ‘lord
or chief’. Hobson-Jobson, s.w. Pra and Parvoe; Dalgado s.v. Precheu. From
Pinto (cLXXXix) it seems that Prechau was a title of the king of Siam, which
agrees with Pires’ Prechayoa: ‘The King’s highest title is Prechau Saleu,
which in our language means holy member of God.’ Gerini says that
Pinto’s Prechau is ‘P’hrah Chau, the Sacred Lord, i.e. His Majesty; some-
thing like “Holy Tzar’’.’ Historical Retrospect ofjunkceylon Island, p. 13.
3 Agii capitemte in the Lisbon MS; Aiam campetit in Ramusio. Oya Kam-
pengpet, the Governor of Kampengpet or Kamphengphet, the old Siamese
city in i6‘’ 30' lat. N. A fairly complete Portuguese map by Miranda, of the
early eighteenth century (in Aires, Fernao Mendes Pinto e o Japao) has
Campeng.
* Perajoa in the Lisbon MS; Peraia in Ramusio. Perhaps Pra Oya, mean-
ing ‘Lord Governor’. According to Campos some cities and ports had a
governor with the title of Oya or Phya. Op. cit., p. 1 1 . Pinto (clxxxii) refers
to the 'Oyds, Conchalis and Monteos, which are supreme dignities above all
the others of the kingdom’ of Siam. But referring to Lugor he says (xxxvi)
there is there ‘a viceroy whom they call Poyho in their language’.
no
TOM]^ PIRES
{Pahdm), Trengganu {Talimgano), Chantansay, Patani, Lakon
{Lugou), Maitaram, Calndsey, Banqa, Chotomuj, Pepory, Pam-
goray and other ports all have lords like kings, some of them
Moors, some of them heathen. And in each port there are many
junks and these navigate to Cambodia, Champa, Cochin China
{Cauckij)y and to Java and Sunda, and to Malacca, Pase,
Pedir and to those of Indragiri {Andarguerijy, Palembang
(Palimbdo), and from these places to Patani. They have up to
seven or eight hundred bahars of pepper every year, and every-
one of these ports is a chief port, and they have a great deal of
trade, and many of them rebel against Siam; and this viceroy
very rich and a very important person — almost as important as
the other, [of] Kampengpet (Capemtit).
The other is Vya Chacotay^. He is viceroy on the Tenasserim,
Trang and Kedah side. He is the chief person. He has juris-
diction over them all. He is perpetual captain of Tenasserim. He
is the lord of many people and of a land plenteous in foodstuffs.
Another is Oparaa^. He is secretary to the king. Everything
passes through his hands and through the Concusa who is
treasurer; and they say that both this Oparaa and the Concusa
Fol isSr. now have, | great authority with the king of Siam, although
the Concusa is a man of low birth. It is customary in the
kingdom of Siam for everything to go through these two
people Oparaa and Concusa, and these two wrote to Malacca
with the king of Siam.
[BURMA]
Kingdoms
of Burma
and
Jangoma.
The boundaries of the kingdom of Burma are in the hinter-
* All these names from Camboja to Palimbdo were omitted in the Lisbon
MS and in Ramusio. Barros (ii, v, i), mentions Andraguerij, Albuquerque
{Comentarios, iii, xvii) refers to Dandargiri, and Castanheda (ii, cxi) speaks of
Andragide as a kingdom of Sumatra. Ribeiro’s maps of 1527 and 1529 have
adaragire. Andarguerij corresponds to the Indragiri River, which debouches
on the east coast of Sumatra in 1° lat. S.
^ Ajaa chacotai in the Lisbon MS, Aia Chatoteri in Ramusio. Oya Socotai,
the Governor of Socotay, Sukotai or Sukhothai, the old Siamese city in 17°
lat. N. The map of Miranda has Socotay north-west of Campeng.
* Uparat was a title meaning literally ‘Second King’ or ‘Vice King’ in the
kingdom of Siam. He ‘was, in fact, the Crown Prince’, says Wood, A History
of Siam, pp. 92-3.
BURMA
III
land, on the side of Pegu and Arakan; and on the China side
it is bounded by Jangoma, and Jangoma is bounded by Burma
and by Cambodia.
These two heathen kings of the hinterland are at war with
Pegu and Arakan and with Bengal and with Cambodia and chiefly
with Siam because [Siam] killed certain of their sons. Others
say that Burma has boundaries only from Pegu to Cambodia
in the hinterland, and behind this kingdom of the Edetrias^ and
Jangoma they then enter into the land of China, and as the
land narrows, there is no doubt that this is so.
They say that in Burma is the mine for the precious stones Merchan-
that go from there to the city of Ava, which is in Arakan, and
that [Burma] has a great deal of benzoin and lac, which goes kingdoms.
from there to Siam and Pegu; and that the musk comes from the
kingdom oi Jangoma and the kingdom of the \hlanKY and they
say that musk also goes there from China.
They affirm, and it seems reasonable, that they can go over-
land from Pegu and Siam to take the pepper and sandalwood to
China — on the hinterland side of China — because the people of
Pegu and Siam trade with Burma in lancharas and paraos^ up
the rivers there are in the said kingdoms; and the merchants
who go in this way say what they please and within a month
they come back^.
Pepper, white sandalwood, wide and narrow sinabafos, quick- Merchan-
silver, vermilion, damasks, satins, brocades, white cloths from
Bengal; and there are many men from these kingdoms in Siam, in these
Pegu and Cambodia. Kingdoms
The men of these kingdoms are horsemen. They have horses
and elephants. They wear boots. It is their custom to cut off the jangoma.
noses of all their prisoners, and specially of those from Cambodia,
who started this custom.
* This word is omitted in the Lisbon MS and in Ramusio.
^ There is a word missing here, and in Ramusio also. In the Lisbon MS it
reads: ‘and the musk comes from the kingdom of Jangoma', from there also
musk goes to China’.
3 A small Malay vessel. Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Prow; Dalgado i.t). Parau.
This obscure sentence has been left out in the Lisbon MS and in
Ramusio.
112
TOME FIRES
Kingdom
of
Cambodia
(Cam-
boja).
Food-
stuffs.
Merchan-
dise
market-
able in
Cam-
bodia.
[CAMBODIA]
Leaving Siam on the way to China along the sea-coast, is the
kingdom of Cambodia, which is bounded along the said way by
Champa. The said king is a heathen and knightly. This country
extends far into the hinterland. He is at war with the people of
Burma and with Siam, and sometimes with Champa, and he
does not obey anyone. The people of Cambodia are warlike.
The land of Cambodia possesses many rivers. There are many
lancharas on them, which sail to the coast of Siam on the Lakon
side, and they often form into armadas against friends and
foes(?). The land of Cambodia produces quantities of foodstuffs.
It is a country with many horses and elephants.
The land of Cambodia produces quantities of rice and good
meat, fish and wines of its own kind; and this country has gold;
it has lac, many elephants’ tusks, dried fish, rice.
Fine white cloths from Bengal, a little pepper, cloves, ver-
milion, quicksilver, liquid storax, red beads.
In this country the lords burn themselves on the death of the
king — as do the king’s wives and the other women on the death
of their husbands. And they go shorn around their ears as a sign
of elegance.
[champa]
Kingdom Beyond the land of Cambodia, following the sea-coast, inland,
of Cham- jg kingdom of Champa. The country is large and produces a
" great deal of rice, meat and other foodstuffs. | There are no
Fol. 138V. ports in this country for large junks. It has a few towns on
* Champaa or Champa — ‘The name of a kingdom at one time of great
power and importance in Indo-China, occupying the extreme S.E. of that
region. A limited portion of its soil is still known by that name, but otherwise
as the Binh-Thuan province of Cochin China.’ Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Champa.
Barros (i, ix, i) says: ‘Beyond this Kingdom of Camboja comes the other
Kingdom called Campd . . . which our people call Cauchij China, and the
natives Cachd.’ Camoens (x, 129) also mentions ‘the coast called Champa’.
The Cantino map has champocachim on its eastern part. Then the name dis-
appeared from Portuguese maps, to be found again on the atlas of c. 1615-23:
CHAMPA, east of CAMBOIA; on Berthelot’s map of 1635: COSTA
DE CHAMPA, east of CAMBODIA. Similarly on other later maps.
PLATE XX
Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 39) of part of the South Coast of China and
some islands, possibly the Philippines (p. 523)
CHAMPA
“3
rivers. Ships that draw a fathom and a half of water go in at high
tide; at low tide they are dry at the entrance. Many lancharas
navigate in Siam up to Pahang.
The king is a heathen. He has many subjects. He is rich and
lives by husbandry. They all have horses. He is at war with
other kings, and chiefly with the king of Cochin China.
The chief merchandise of Champa is calambac*, which is Calam-
aloes-wood, the true and best kind of it, for the kind that is used
in Portugal is guaro, and here there are forests of it. There is
a great difference in the taste and smell of calambac, and [there
is as much difference] in its value as between gold and lead; and
the best of this calambac, and the source of it, is in Champa. It is
gummy with black and white veins. It is a soft wood. In Malacca
two arrdteis fetch six or seven cruzados, and there is some worth
twelve; and the more perfect and the larger the wood the higher
it rises in value, as against the small [wood], although they may
both be equally good.
It has a good quantity of tried gold from Menangkabau
{MenancahoY, which comes from the mine, [and] which ever
goes to Cochin China. The people of Champa hold gold to be a
merchandise of its true value. It is gold in big pieces.
From \Champa] they take dried salt fish, rice and gold to Food-
Malacca, [and] some pepper, because there is no other merchan-
dise in the country. The country does not have much trade in
Malacca, because merchandise goes there from Siam.
’ Aquilaria Agallocha Roxb., Calambac, Agallochum, Aloe or Eagle-wood.
See Burkill, pp. 197-205.
^ Menancabo is the ancient inland Kingdom of Menangkabau, in Sumatra.
The letter to Albuquerque, written from Malacca on 6 Feb. 1510, by Portu-
guese captives, mentions for the first time ‘the gold that comes to Malacca
from a mine in Menamcabo on the side of Qamatra, and they go there from
here by sea and a river in nine or ten days’. Cartas, iii, 10. On the Cantino
map there is manjcabo at the N.W. of Taporbana Island. The map of c. 1540
as manacdbo across Sumatra, in 2-3*" lat.S. Dourado’s atlases and the atlas
of c. 1615—23 have mandcabo naming a river on the south-west of Sumatra.
One of Eredia’s maps (fol. 24V.) has MINAS: DE: ORO do Monancabo on
the S.W. of Sumatra. Ferrand {Malaka, le Mayalu et Malayur, xii, 51-82),
and Dames (ii, 170— i, 186-7) have dealt extensively with Menangkabau and
the Menangkabos. Tomas Dias, a Portuguese, was the first European to
visit the hinterland of Menangkabau, in 1684, and a modern Dutch writer
calls him ‘the greatest explorer of Sumatra’. Schnitger, Forgotten Kingdoms
in Sumatra, pp. 55-64.
H
c.s. I.
Merchan-
dise
market-
able in
Champa.
Coinage
of the
country.
People
and ships.
Kingdom
of Cochin
China
(Cauchy
Chyna).
II4 TOME FIRES
The chief is areca, with which they eat betel, with cloth from
Bengal, large and small sinahafos, panchavilizes^ , a few Kling
cloths, pepper, cloves, a little nutmeg, catechu, a little pachak,
liquid storax.
Cashes {caixasY from China are used for the small money, and
in trade gold and silver [are used]. Gold in Champa is worth a
fifth part less that in Malacca and silver a sixth part.
It is weak on the sea. It has many lancharas which need little
depth, because there is little water. They sail through the
country, which is large. With the merchandise of the country
and with the cloth produced in the country for their clothes
they go to Siam and Cochin China. It has no port of note.
There are no Moors in the kingdom.
[cochin china]
The king of Cochin China is king of a larger and richer
country than Champa. The kingdom is between Champa and
China. He is a powerful warrior in the land. He has a great
many lancharas and thirty or forty junks^. The country contains
large navigable rivers. There are no settlers by them; near the sea
[there are] many. His country extends a long way inland. In
Malacca his country is called Cochin China {Cauchy Chyna), on
account of Cauchy Coulam,
The king is a heathen, and so are all his people. They are not
friendly to Moors. They do not sail to Malacca, but to China
and to Champa. They are a very weak people on the sea; all their
achievement is on land. They have great lords. This king is
joined to the king of China by marriages; and as this king does
not make war with China, he always has an ambassador at the
king of China’s court, even though the king of Cochin China
be unwilling, or though it breed discontent in him, because he
' Perhaps the same as pachaveldes, a printed cloth in Choromandel.
Dalgado, s.v. Pachavelao.
2 Caixa — cash. ‘A name applied by Europeans to sundry coins of low value
in various parts of the Indies.' Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Cash; Dalgado, s.v. Caixa.
3 Although the Paris MS says ‘four junks’, this is obviously a mistake; the
transcriber wrote ‘terra atee qoat°’ where Pires had written ‘trinta ou qua-
renta’. The Lisbon MS and Ramusio have ‘thirty or forty’.
COCHIN CHINA
II5
is his vassal, as will be told in the account of China. Cochin
China is a land of many horses.
This king is much given to war, and he has countless Fol. isgr.
musketeers, and small bombards. A very great deal of powder
is used in his country, both in war and in all his feasts and
amusements by day and night. All the lords and important
people in his kingdom employ it like this. Powder is used every
day in rockets and all other pleasurable exercises, as we shall see
in the merchandise which is of value there.
Chiefly gold and silver, much more than in Champa; the Merchan-
calambac is not so much as in Champa. They have porcelain there
and pottery — some of great value — and these go from there to
China to be sold. They have better, bigger and wider and finer Cochin
taffeta of all kinds than there is anywhere else here and in our China.
[countries]. They have the best raw (?) silks in colours, which
are in great abundance here, and all that they have in this
way is fine and perfect, without the falseness that things from
other places have, and also seed pearls and not much.
At the head of the merchandise appreciated in Cochin China Merchan-
is sulphur, and [they would take] twenty junks of this if they
would send them as many as these; and sulphur from China is CocMn
greatly valued. A very great deal comes to Malacca from the China.
islands of Solor beyond Java, as will be told when they are
described; and from here it goes to Cochin China.
A large quantity of saltpetre is also of value, and a large Saltpetre
quantity comes there from China, and it is all sold there. Rubies, .
diamonds, sapphires and all other fine precious stones are
value, and some opium, but little, a little pepper, and so with
the other things that are of value in China. Liquid storax is of
fair value.
They rarely come to Malacca in their junks. They go to
China, to Canton {Quamtom)^ which is a large city, to join up
with the Chinese ( ?); then they come for merchandise with the
Chinese in their junks, and the chief thing they bring [to
Malacca] is gold and silver and things they buy in China.
[FOURTH BOOK]
[CHINA TO BORNEO]
[China — Liu Kiu — J apan — Borneo — P hilippines]
Kingdom
of China.
A
[china]
CCORDING to what the nations here in the East say,
things of China are made out to be great, riches, pomp
and state in both the land and people, and other tales
which it would be easier to believe as true of our Portugal than
of China ^ China is a large country with beautiful horses and
mules, they say, and in large numbers.
The king of China is a heathen with much land and many
people. The people of China are white, as white as we are. Most
of them wear black cotton cloth, and they wear sayons of this in
five pieces with gores, as we do, only they are very wide. In
the winter they wear felt on their legs by way of socks, and on
top well-made boots which do not reach above the knee, and
they wear their clothes lined with lambskin and other furs.
Some of them wear pelisses. They wear round silk net caps like
Fol. I39V. the black sieves we have in Portugal, j They are rather like
Germans. They have thirty or forty hairs in their beards. They
wear very well-made French shoes with square toes.
All the Chinese eat pigs, cows and all other animals. They
drink a fair amount of all sorts of beverages. They praise our
wine greatly. They get pretty drunk. They are weak people, of
small account. Those who are to be seen in Malacca are not very
truthful, and steal — that is the common people. They eat with
two sticks, and the earthenware or china bowl in their left hand
close to their mouth, with the two sticks to suck in. This is the
Chinese way^.
' Prof. A. C. Moule pointed out to me how this modern assumption of
western superiority is an interesting contrast to the medieval wonder at the
superiority of the East.
2 This is the earliest known European description of the chopsticks. 'A
very good description too’, comments Prof. Moule. Hobson-Jobson, s.v.
Chopsticks, has nothing earlier than F. Mendes Pinto’s description, c. 1540.
116
CHINA
II7
The women look like Span sh women. They wear pleated Chinese
skirts with waistbands, and little loose coats longer than in our '^omen.
country. Their long hair is rolled in a graceful way on the top of
their heads, and they put many gold pins in it to hold it, and
those who have them put precious stones around, and golden
jewelry on the crown of their heads and in their ears and on their
necks. They put a great deal of ceruse on their faces and paint
on the top of it, and they are so made up that Seville has no
advantage over them; and they drink like women from a cold
country. They wear pointed slippers of silk and brocade. They
all carry fans in their hands. They are as white as we are, and
some of them have small eyes and others large, and noses as
they must be.
China has many cities [and] fortresses, all masonry. The city Where the
where the king lives is called Cambara^, [In the margin of this
paragraph there is an addition to the text, in the same hand —
perhaps a couple of lines left out here by the transcriber. The
manuscript was badly cropped in binding, part of the words
having been cut away. The text may, however, be reconstituted
as here given in italics;] This city is in the kingdom of China, the
king of which is there sometimes as .. . Cambarra, which is called
Peking (Peqim). These cities are inland, far from Canton (Qato).
It has many inhabitants and many nobles with innumerable
Barbosa (ii, 213) also refers to the chopsticks; Pires’ account is better, how-
ever, perhaps because he had actually seen Chinese eating in Malacca.
* Cambara or Peqim — Peking. The Cambalu or Cambaluc of Marco Polo,
and Cambalech of other medieval writers. Though several cities had stood on
or near the site of Peking, this name was first used in 1403 by the Ming
Emperor ChSng Tsu (better known by his reign-title Yung-Lo), who moved
his court thither in 1420. Peking, of course, means ‘northern capital’. It
seems likely that Tom€ Pires was the first European to call it by that name.
It must be said, however, that the Comentdrios (lii, xxx), compiled from
documents contemporary with Pires, also refers to Pequim as the city where
the king of China was. In their two long letters of 1524, Cristovao Vieira and
Vasco Calvo often refer to Pequim. The survival at that date of Cambara
(Polo’s Cambalu) is of considerable interest. It might suggest that Pires knew
of Marco Polo’s Book, though Cambara and Cambalu are so different in
spelling, and he does not mention the famous Venetian traveller anywhere in
the Suma. More remarkable still is the identification of Cambara with Peking.
Nearly a hundred years later Ricci reckoned as a discovery ‘il Cataio esser la
Cina e la corte del re del Cataio esser Pachino’. Opere storiche, vol. i, p. 546.
On the probable representation of Peking on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 40), see
P- 523-
Vassal
kings of
the king
of China,
his tribu-
taries who
pay him
tribute
Vassal
kings
without
obligation
of a tribute
\who^ only
[give d\
present.
How the
ambassa-
dors [are
received^
by the
king.
Il8 TOM^ PIRES
horses. The king is never seen by the people, or the grandees,
except by very few, because that is the custom. They say he has
countless mules — as if it were in our country.
The king of Champa, the king of Cochin China, the king of
the Liu Kiu (Lequjos), the king of Japan. Mention will be made
of these later.
The king of Java, the king of Siam, the king of Pase, the king
of Malacca. These send their ambassadors with the seal of China
to the king of China every five years and every ten years, and
each one sends him the best there is in his country of what he
knows they like there.
From Malacca they sent him pepper and white sandal-wood,
good-sized wood, and also garo^, which is apothecary’s aloes,
rings with precious stones, birds^ which come in quantities dead,
and things like that, camlets; and each one according to what
he has. These ambassadors can enter and leave China.
When these ambassadors go to the king, they do not see any-
thing but the vague shape of his body behind a curtain, and he
answers from there, and seven scribes write down the words as
he says them; the mandarin officials sign this without the king’s
touching it, nor being seen, and they return; and if they take a
present of a thousand he presents them with double, and the
ambassadors leave everything there as bribes and go away with-
out seeing the face or the person of the king. This is the truth,
and not, as they used to say, that four men were seated in view
and that they talked to all of them without knowing which was
the king. And these ambassadors can cast anchor in the port of
Canton, as will be told later.
* Garo, which further on is spelt garuu — The Malay garu or gaharu, for the
calambac, eagle-wood or aloes. Orta (xxx) says that the Malays call the
inferior quality garro, and the very fine one calambac. ‘Valentyn pronounces
the gahru to be an inferior species . . . and different from the genuine kalam-
bak\ Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. i6o. Gaharu — from the Skt. garu,
‘heavy’ — is a word of trade and indicates the fragant heavy wood. Burkill,
pp. 198-9, 202. Dr. Lionel Giles informs me that the Chinese name ior garo
is ch’in-hsiang, ‘sinking incense’, so called because it is heavier than water.
* Perhaps the birds of paradise from Aru and New Guinea, and the
brilliant-coloured parrots from the Moluccas, which were brought to Malacca
as referred to by Pires further on. The Chinese also imported the hornbill
and used the bill for various carved ornaments. Cf. Moule, Some Foreign
Birds and Beasts in Chinese Books, p. 259.
CHINA
II9
The kings of China do not succeed from father to son or Fol. i6ir.
nephew, but by election in council of the whole kingdom. It ^
always takes place in the city of Camhara where the king resides, ^
and the mandarin who is approved by them becomes king^ king.
No Chinese may set out in the direction of Siam, Java,
Malacca, Pase and beyond, without permission from the the realm
governors 01 Canton, and they charge so much tor signing the
licence to go and come back that they cannot afford it and do not sail to
go; and if any stranger is in the land of China he may not leave
o ' o j KifiP dottts •
without a licence from the king, and for this licence, if he is rich,
he is reduced to nothing. And if any junk or ship passes beyond
the bounds allotted to it for anchorage, its goods are confiscated
to the king; and the people are put to death for it.
Beginning from the Cochin China {Cauchy) boundaries Places by
towards the coast of China, there are fortresses: first Hainan
{Aynam ) — where they find the seed-pearls that go to China — dom of
and Nan-t’ou (Nantoo) and Canton and Chang-chou {Cham- China.
cheoY and other places. Let us speak only of Canton, which is
the largest of all and the trading centre for these parts.
* All this information is, of course, wholly incorrect.
2 There has been some discussion about the Chamcheo or Chincheo of the
Portuguese, which has been identified with Marco Polo’s Zayton, the magni-
fico porto de Zaiton of Fra Mauro’s map (1459), corresponding either to
Ch’iian-chou or Chang-chou, or to both, in the province of Fukien. T’ien-ts€
Chang asserts that by the name of Chincheo 'the Portuguese evidently meant
to include both the perfectures of Ch’iianchow and Changchow’. Sino-
Portuguese Trade from 15^4 to 1644, pp. 70, 85. Other authorities, however,
are not so sure that the Chincheo of the Portuguese corresponds to any other
place than Chang-chou; cf. Paul Pelliot, Un ouvrage sur les premiers temps de
Macao, pp. 66, 92, where he analyses Chang’s book. Prof. Moule tells me
that ‘Zayton or Zaitun was certainly Ch’iian-chou, not Chang-chou; but that
does not prevent Chamcheo being Chang-chou. One would think that
originally Chamcheo was Changcheo, and that Chincheo was Ch’uan-chou;
but they were naturally and immediately confused. For the Chinese at a
rather earlier date, Ch’iian-chou was the port for foreign trade’. Yule had
already remarked that on ‘the old maps of the seventeenth century . . .
Chincheo is really Changchau’. Marco Polo, ii, 239. It may be added that
sixteenth century Portuguese maps, such as Homem’s of 1554, Dourado’s of
1568—80, and others, show clearly that Chincheo is Chang-chou, situated at
the inner end of a bay dotted with several islands. The spelling of Pires’
Chamcheo rather suggests Chang-chou. The map of c. 1540 is the first on
which I find C. de chimcheo’, Mercator’s globe of 1541, reproducing an earlier
Portuguese map, has also C do chimcheo. Later maps have chimcheo or o
chimcheo inscribed at the end of the bay.
120
TOME FIRES
This Hainan is a bay^ on the coast, without a river. Near it are
some islands in the sea, where they fish for seed pearls. There
are large quantities of these.
The city of Canton {Quamtomy is where the whole kingdom
’ The Catalan map of 1375-81 is the earliest to represent Hainan Island,
which is called caynam, from Marco Polo’s Cheynan. The Cantino map has
an ylha ana at the end of what may correspond to Polo’s gulf of Cheynan,
bounded on one side by Amu (which in some texts is Ania); but neither Ana
nor Amu can be Hainan. One of Rodrigues’ maps (fol. 38) shows the Gulf of
Tong-King, with Hainan duly placed to the east of the entrance to the Gulf;
on Lei chou peninsula is written mam llimom. tnam stands for Hainan.
llimom must correspond to King-Men or Lin-mun (Cantonese pronuncia-
tion), which means ‘Gate of the mountain range’, the name of a town in
Hainan. In a Lexique geographique des noms de lieux du Lei-K’ioung Tao,
published by Cl. Madrolle, we find 'Ling-MSn. — Porte de la montagne.
Ling-Moun (Cantonais); Neing-Moun (local). Bourg dans la region monta-
gneuse de Hai-nan, district de Ting-an, hien’. Hai-nan et la c 6 te continentale
voisine, p. 113. Lei-K’ioung Tao, or Lei-ch’iung Tao, is the circuit {tad)
comprising the departments {fu) of Lei chou, i.e. the peninsula of Kuangtung
opposite to Hainan, and Ch’iung chou, the northern part of Hainan itself.
Lei chou and Ch’iung chou were so called throughout the Ming and Ch’ing
dynasties. Ting-an is a district (ksien) south of Ch’iung chou city, apparently
on the western slopes of Ch’iung mountain. Ribeiro’s maps of 1527 and 1529
have C. daytam — an obvious mistranscription from some earlier Portuguese
map — ^written on a peninsula corresponding to Hainan Island, which appears
as a prolongation of Lei chou peninsula. The same happens on the c. 1540
map, which has Y. danid, and near it a tinhosa (Scurfy). The Gulf of Tong-
King is fairly well drawn on this map, much better than on later sixteenth
century maps. L. Homen’s map of 1554, D. Homem’s atlas of 1558, and Luis’
atlas of 1563 represent Hainan as a separate island, but without name; how-
ever, they have J. tinhosa. Two ridges united by a sandy isthmus form the
island still called Tinhosa or Tai chau, separated from the east coast of
Hainan by a three-mile wide channel. Tinhosa, which afforded good shelter
and supplies of water, firewood and fish, was an almost obligatory port of call
for the ships sailing to and from Canton or any port further north. This still
applies today, in some degree. Cf. China Sea Pilot, in (1923 ed.).
2 This is the earliest document known in which Canton, the modern form
of the name of the great city in southern China, occurs. It had been men-
tioned as Hdnfu (probably = Chinese Kuang fu, i.e. Kuang [choul fu) by
Sulayman, and Sin-ul-Sin by Idrisi, in the twelfth century, and as Sinkaldn by
Ibn Batuta, and Censcalan (Chinkalan) by Friar Odoric, in the fourteenth cen-
tury. One of Rodrigues ’ maps (fol. 40) represents the Canton River. See note on
Pulo Turnon, p. 12 1. The first maps to record the name Cantam are, however,
those ofRibeiroof 1527 and 1529. It was thought until recently that the voyage
of Jorge Alvares in a junk to the Canton River, the first Portuguese visit to
China, was in 1514. There are, however, several documents showing categori-
cally that Alvares’ voyage took place in 1513. Pires also confirms the year of
this voyage when, writing before or at the beginning of 1514, he mentions
China as one of the ‘places where our junks and ships have been’ (p. 283).
PLATE XXII
Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 41) of the North-east Coast of China with
an island, Parpoquo, which may correspond to Japan (pp. 523-5)
CHINA
I2I
of China unloads all its merchandise, great quantities from
inland as well as from the sea. The city of Canton is at the
entrance of the estuary of a large river which is three or four
fathoms deep at high tide. The city, which can be seen from the
estuary, is situated on flat ground without any hills. All the
houses are of stone and surrounded by a wall which they say is
seven fathoms thick and as many high, and they say that it is
steep on the city side. So the Lufoes say who have been there.
And it has ports where there are many large junks. The city is
guarded; the gates are closed. They are strong, these kings of
whom we spoke; they have seals when they send their ambas-
sadors. They trade inside the city, and if not, they do it outside,
some thirty leagues from Canton, and take the merchandise
there from Canton. Some say that the city [where the king lives]
is about four months’ journey from Canton, and others say four
[weeks ?] and others — and this is true — that they can do the said
journey in twenty days good going.
Thirty leagues on this side of Canton, towards Malacca, there Islands
are some islands near the mainland of Nan-t’ou
where are the ports already allotted to each nation, viz., Pulo from
Turnon^ and others. And as soon as the said junks anchor there, Malacca
anchor.
* Nantoo, or Nantd, as it is called by other early Portuguese writers, is
Nan-t’ou or Nam-t’au (Cantonese pronunciation), ‘an important town in the
San On [Hsin-an] District, just outside the present British boundary’. J. M.
Braga, The 'Tamdo' of the Portuguese Pioneers, pp. 428, 429. By San On,
Braga means the District of Hsin-an which was anciently, and is now, called
Pao-an. Nan-t’ou is either (a) the District of Pao-an, or (b) the military post
‘in the Pao-an District’. See next note.
^ Pulo Turnon, Timon, Tamon, and Tamdo, or Ilha da Veniaga (Island of
Trade), of the early Portuguese writers, was for long identified with San-
chuan Island, but so unsatisfactorily that the problem has always provoked
a good deal of controversy. J. M. Braga showed more recently that Pulo
Turnon is Lin Tin Island, which lies about the middle of the Chukiang, the
Canton, or the Pearl River entrance, nearer to the north bank. It seems likely
that the Turnon or Tamdo of the Portuguese corresponds to T’un-min or
Tuen Moon O, an old Chinese name for an anchorage off Lin Tin Island, the
pronunciation of which in Cantonese has a sound similar to the Portuguese
version. ‘This would be the name given to the entire anchorage, and the
Portuguese could very easily have applied the name of the anchorage to the
island off which they anchored’. The ‘Tamdo' of the Portuguese, p. 431. Prof.
Moule tells me, however, that ‘A recent and on the whole reliable Geo-
graphical Dictionary {Ku chin ti ming ta tz’u tien) gives Nan-t’ou city as a
name of the district city of Pao-an on the mainland. T’un-mSn (also called
122
TOME FIRES
The
custom of
land and
sea cap-
tains in
Canton.
Fol. i 6 iv.
the lord of Nan-t’ou sends word to Canton and merchants im-
mediately come to value the merchandise and to take their dues, as
will be told later. Then they bring them the merchandise made
up from one part and another. Each one returns to his home.
They affirm that all those who take merchandise from Canton
to the islands make a profit of three, four or five in every ten, and
the Chinese have this custom so that the land shall not be taken
from them, as well as in order to receive the dues on the
merchandise exported as well as imported; and the chief [reason]
is for fear lest the city be taken from them, because they say that
the city of Canton is a rich one, and corsairs often come up to it.
Hi Taao\ one of the chief people, is captain of this city, and there
is a captain every year by the king’s decree, and he cannot remain
[in office] longer. There is another sea-captain almost like the
land one, with separate jurisdiction. Both are changed yearly.
They say that the Chinese made this law about not being able
to go to Canton for fear of the Javanese and Malays, for it is
Pei-tu) is the name of an island south of Pao-an; and there was a military post
called formerly T’un-men, but in the Ming dynasty Nan-t’ou, which was at
the anchorage or harbour south-east of Pao-an. So the text seems to be
correct in calling Turnon an island, and it is more likely that the harbour was
named after the island than vice versa. The ‘Lord of Namtou’ may be the
magistrate of Pao-an (= Nan-t’ou), or the commander of the garrison at
Nan-t’ou military post’. Further on Pires says that Turnon is 20 or 30 leagues
distant from Canton (Correia and Castanheda say 18 leagues): Lin Tin
Island is really about 65 miles or 20 leagues from Canton by river. Pires says
also that Turnon lies one league (3.2 miles) from Nan-t’ou on the mainland.
The shortest distance between Lin Tin and Nan-t’ou Peninsula is about five
miles. Castanheda, Barros, and Gdis say that Tamao or Turnon was three
leagues from the mainland, but as the anchorage was on the western side of
the island and Nan-t’ou is eastwards, Pires’ information is not so far out as it
seems at first sight. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 40) is the first to show this island,
but bearing only the inscription: ‘off this island anchor the junks of China’,
meaning the junks which went from Malacca to the Canton River. It is
situated nearer to the north bank of a large river, which has written at its
mouth: ‘The mouth of the strait of China’. I do not know of any map with
the name Turnon, or the like, though Jlhas da veniaga and Jlhas de Cantam,
which include Turnon, appear for the first time on L. Homem’s map of 1554.
Pires’ information shows that before being the anchorage of the Portuguese
ships. Turnon was already the anchorage of the ships from Malacca; in this
he is confirmed by Rodrigues’ map.
' Hi Tado, i.e., the Hai Tao, an officer charged with coast defence. Chang
(p. 54) says that he was the commander of the fleet at Canton. It seems that
Pires mixed up the information he obtained.
CHINA
123
certain that one of these people’s junks would rout twenty
Chinese junks. They say that China has more than a thousand
junks, and each of them trades where it sees fit; but the people
are weak, and such is their fear of Malays and Javanese that it
is quite certain that one [of our] ship[s] of four hundred tons
could depopulate Canton, and this depopulation would bring
great loss to China.
Not to rob any country of its glory, it certainly seems that
China is an important, good and very wealthy country, and the
Governor of Malacca would not need as much force as they say
in order to bring it under our rule, because the people are very
weak and easy to overcome. And the principal people who have
often been there affirm that with ten ships the Governor of
India who took Malacca could take the whole of China along
the sea-coast. And China is twenty days’ sail distant for our
ships. They leave here at the end of June for a good voyage, and
with a monsoon wind they can go in fifteen days. From China
they have recently begun sailing to Borneo {Burney), and they
say that they go there in fifteen days, and that this must have
been for the last fifteen years.
The chief merchandise is pepper — of which they will buy Merchan-
ten junk-loads a year if as many go there — cloves, a little nut-
meg, a little more pachak, catechu; they will buy a great deal of china
incense, elephants’ tusks, tin, apothecary’s lignaloes; they buy a that goes
great deal of Borneo camphor, red beads, white sandalwood,
brazil, infinite quantities of the black wood that grows in
Singapore (Syngapura); they buy a great many carnelians from
Cambay, scarlet camlets, coloured woollen cloths. Pepper apart,
they make little account of all the rest.
The said junks from Malacca go and anchor off the island of
Turnon, as has already been said, twenty or thirty leagues away
from Canton. These islands are near the land of Nan-t’ou, a
league to seaward from the mainland. Those from Malacca
anchor there in the port of Turnon and those from Siam in the
port of Huchant^. Our port is three leagues nearer to China than
^ Perhaps some of the islands forming or adjoining the Lantau Channel,
such as Chung-chou, which lies about four and a half miles south of Lin Tin,
towards the sea.
Dues
levied in
China on
merchanU
coming
from
Malacca.
Weights
in China
— large
and
small.
Fol. i62r.
Food-
stuffs :
rice,
wheat,
meat,
chickens,
fish.
124 TOME FIRES
the Siamese one, and merchandise comes to it rather than to the
other.
As soon as the lord of Nan-t’ou sees the junks he immed-
iately sends word to Canton that junks have gone in among the
islands; the valuers from Canton go out to value the merchan-
dise; they receive their dues; they bring just the amount of
merchandise that is required: the country is pretty well accus-
tomed to estimate it, so well do they know of you the goods you
want, and they bring them.
They pay twenty per cent on pepper, fifty per cent on brazil,
and the same amount on the Singapore wood; and when this has
been estimated a junk will pay so much in proportion. They
receive their dues on the other merchandise at ten per cent; and
they do not oppress you; they have genuine merchants in their
dealings. They are very wealthy. Their whole idea is pepper.
They sell their foodstuffs honestly; business over, each returns
to his own country. The common people are not very near to
truth, and the commoner things in their business are all false
and counterfeit.
Once in China, a hundred catties are called a piquo\ then you
make your price: so many piquos of pepper for one of silk or so
many of such and such goods for one of pepper; and it is just the
same with musk, so many catties of pepper for one of musk,
[or] seed-pearls. A picoll^ contains a hundred catties; each catty
contains sixteen taels; each tael contains ten mazes', each maz^
contains ten pm. Each catty contains twenty-one ounces of our
measure. Three hundred and twelve catties of twenty-one
ounces each make a Malacca bahar on the small scales.
All these goods are sold by weight, to wit, so many measures
of such and such for one of pepper; and when the merchants
take it there is [an arrangement] among them in the country — so
' Piquo or pico, picoll or picul, is the Malay and Javanese pikul, ‘a man’s
load’, for the Chinese weight of loo catties, equal to 133^ lb. or about 60 kg.
^ The value of the maz was variable in the different far-eastern countries.
Maz or 'mace was adopted in the language of European traders in China to
denominate the tenth part of the Chinese Hang or tael of silver’. Hobson-
jfobson, s.v. See note p. 145. These weights are given quite correctly by Fires.
Catty is the Malay kati, tael the Hindi tola (through the Portuguese), mace
the Hindi masha, and pon the Chinese fin (also called candareen, from the
Malay Kondrin).
CHINA
125
many weights of such and such a foodstuff for one of fuseleira
cash, which are current in the country like ceitis, and for large
merchandise and other purchases gold and silver [is used] for
money.
The chief merchandise from China is raw white silk in large Merchan-
quantities, and loose coloured silks, many in quantity, satins of that
all colours, damask chequered enrolados in all colours, taffetas
and other thin silk cloths called xaas^, and many other kinds of
all colours; an abundance of seed-pearl in various shapes, mostly
irregular; they also have some big round ones — this in my
opinion is as important a merchandise in China as silk, although
they count silk as the chief merchandise — musk in powder and
in pods, plenty of this, and certainly good, which yields in
nothing to that from Pegu; apothecary’s camphor in large
quantities, abarute, alum, saltpetre, sulphur, copper, iron,
rhubarb, and all of it is worthless — what I have seen up to the
present has been rotten when it arrived; they say it used to come
fresh; I have not seen it — vases of copper and fuseleira, cast iron
kettles, bowls, basins, quantities of these things, boxes, fans,
plenty of needles of a hundred different kinds, some of them
very fine and well made, these are good merchandise, and things
of very poor quality like those which come to Portugal from
Flanders, countless copper bracelets; gold and silver come and I
did not see much, and many brocades of their kind, and porce-
lains beyond count. Of the things which come from China some
are products from China itself and some from outside, some of
them from places renowned as being better than others. You can
spend your money on whatever of this merchandise you fancy,
except that there is not so much musk to be found. They say
that not more than one bahar comes from China each year in all
junks. The land of China produces plenty of good sugar. There
is a place called Xamcy where there is musk; it has a little and it
* Xaas, sash or shash, from the Arab shash, muslin — ‘A band of a fine
material worn twisted round the head as a turban by Orientals’. Oxford
English Dictionary, s.v. Sash. Prof. Moule tells me, however, that the
Chinese sha ‘gauze’ is at least as old as the Han dynasty (206 B.c. — A.D. 200).
The s of xaas in Pires’ version is probably a plural. Is there any connexion
between the Arabic shash and the Chinese sha} Apparently no; but xaas (if s
is plural) may be simply Chinese.
126
TOM^ PIRES
is good. \In the margin in the same hand are the words i\ ‘The
city whence the musk comes is called Xdnhu, which is in China,
and they say that the animals from which they get the musk are
in fanry'.’
The said junks come from China to Malacca and they do not
pay dues, except for a present; and these presents they give in
accordance with the decrees of the Xabandares of the different
nations: the Xahandar of China, Lequios, Cochin China and
Champa was the Lasamane; and the Xabandares have become
rich through this function, because they greatly overtax the
merchants; and these put up with everything because their
profits are large and also because it is the custom of the country
to do so and endure it.
Places where the merchandise comes from: the raw white silk
is from Chancheo\ coloured silks from Cochin China {Cauchy)\
damasks, satins, brocades, xaaSy loos^ from Nanking (Namqim)
and from Amqm^\ seed-pearl from Hainan (Ayna); apothecary’s
camphor from Chamcheo. \In the margin in the same hand:] ‘In
* Xamcy and Qangy both seem to represent the province of Shensi, the
characters for which are pronounced Shansi. In English it is written Shensi
for the province in North-west China, simply in order to distinguish it from
Shansi, the province in North China, separated by the Yellow River where it
flows north-south. Prof. Moule tells me that this is derived from the early
Missionaries — Portuguese (?) and certainly French — to whom Chen and Chan
provide a convenient distinction without seriously distorting the sound.
Xanbu may very well be Si-an-fu, capital of Shensi, the Kenjanfu of
Marco Polo (ii, xli), who emphasises its importance as 'a city of great trade
and industry’. Several early writers refer to the musk of China as coming
from regions neighbouring on Shensi, such as the Szechwan province, and
from Tibet. See Yule, Marco Polo, i, 279, n, 35, 49; Cathay, i, 246, 316, etc.
2 Crooke mentions a reference, in a Madras list of 1684, to ‘gold flowered
toes', which is supposed to be a ‘name invented for the occasion to describe
some silk stuff brought from the Liu Kiu Islands’. Hobson-Jobson, p. 514.
But no doubt the word really existed, as the pronunciation of loes in English
and loos in Portuguese has the same value. The Chinese lo means ‘coarse
silk’. The s of Pires’ loos may be the Portuguese plural, the same as with xaas.
Dr. Lionel Giles suggests that the word loos might be derived from the
Chinese lo-ssA, meaning a thin kind of silk.
3 Datnqm or de Amquem might suggest Marco Polo’s Unken — or Vnquem,
as it appears in the first Portuguese Marco Paulo (Lisbon, 1502). Unken,
however, has not been identified with any similar Chinese name, so the
chance likeness of Amquem does not seem to have much significance. This
part of the Chinese coast is called costa de ucheu on Homem’s map of 1554.
See note on Foqem, pp. 129—30.
CHINA
127
this Nanking there are all the cotton cloths and big merchants;
it is a month’s journey from Peking {Peqim) to Nanking (Ndnqy)
by river.’ And because [our knowledge of] these places is un-
satisfactory, and because this merchandise is recognizable at
sight, I will not discuss them any more.
Salt is a great merchandise among the Chinese. It is distri-
buted from China to these regions; and it is dealt with by fifteen
hundred junks which come to buy it, and it is loaded in China to
go to other places. Traders in this are very rich and they say to
one another among themselves ‘Are you a salt merchant to
speak of?’
Beyond the port of Canton there is another port which is
called Oquem^'y it is three days’ journey by land and a day and
night by sea. This is the port for the Lequjos and other races.
It has many other ports, which it would be a long business
to tell of, and they do not concern us at present, except up
to Canton {Qmtom), because this is the key to the kingdom of
China.
They say that there are people from Tartary {Tartaria) in the
land of China and they call them Tartars (tartall), and these
people are very white with red beards. They ride on horseback;
they are warlike. And they say that they go from China to the
land of the Tartars (tartaros) in two months, and that in Tartary
they have horses shod with copper shoes, and this must be
because China extends a long way on the northern side, and our
bombardiers say that in Germany they heard tell of these
people and of a city named by the Chinese Quesechama^, and it
seems to them that by this route they could go to their lands in a
short time; but they say that by reason of the cold the land is
uninhabited. Between the Chinese and the Tartars are certain
* Oquem corresponds to Foquem, or Fukien. Prof. Moule tells me that the
local sound of Fu is Hok, with an h which might easily be dropped, as the h
of Hainan was dropped. The Italian traveller Francesco Carletti brought
home in 1603 a Chinese Atlas in which Fukien was transcribed by him as
Ochiam. Cf. Moule, A Note on the Chinese Atlas in the Magliabecchian
Library, p. 292 -
2 Que se chama or q se chama, as it appears in the manuscript, means ‘which
is called’. It is possible that Pires wrote some word or words corresponding
to the Chinese name for a city in Tartary, which the transcriber transformed
into q se chama.
128
TOM^ PIRES
places where there are the Guores\ and after Tartary [is] Russia
{Roxia)y say the Chinese.
Fol. i 62 v. And as no inland countries beyond China which deal with
Malacca are at present known, I make a stop. [A hne here marks
the beginning of an addition to the text which is written in the
margin, in the same hand — perhaps a couple of lines at first left
out by the transcriber. The manuscript was badly cropped in
binding, the greater part of the words having been cut away
beyond possibility of reconstitution. See Portuguese text, p. 460.]
From here onwards we will speak of the islands and only of
those to which [the people of] Malacca sail, because if they all
had to be mentioned there would be no end because of their
infinite numbers. And now we will speak of the Lequjos and
Japan {Jampom), Burneus and Lugoees.
[liu kiu]
The The Lequeos are called Guores — they are known by either of
Ltu Kiu these names^. Lequios is the chief one. The king is a heathen and
(Lequeos)
Island. ^ Who are these Guores} In this case they could hardly be the Lequeos.
Prof. Moule wonders whether they are not the Mongols (Moguors).
^ The earliest European reference to the Gores is in a letter written 6 Feb.
1510 from Malacca to Albuquerque, by Rui de Araiijo who had been taken
prisoner when the treacherous attack was made against the first Portuguese
to go there in 1509. Alguns Documentos, p. 223. Ferrand mentions two
Arab manuscripts, dated respectively 1462 and 1489, where the island Ghur
is referred to as meaning Liu-Kiu or Formosa (L’ile de Ghur = Lieou-K’ieou
= Formosa). According to Ferrand the 1462 MS says: ‘Parmi les iles c^lfebres
[du monde habits], on compte Pile de Likyu, qui est gdn^ralement connue
sous le nom de Al-Ghur’; the 1489 MS has: ‘On y trouve des mines de fer
[appel^] al-ghurl . . . Son nom en langue djawi (in this case the Chinese) est
Likiwu’. Malaka, ii, 126 seqq. This would explain the association of the name
gores with lequeos. As far as we know, the first Europeans to visit the Lequeos
islands were Femao Mendes Pinto, Diogo Zeimoto and Simao Borralho,
when they went to Japan in 1542. Peregrinagao, cxxxii. Some months later
Pinto went again from China to the Lequeos, where he was shipwrecked: he
gives a description of the Ilha Lequia and his adventures there in ch. cxxxvii-
cxlvii of his famous book. C. R. Boxer supposes that the Gores who went to
Malacca, as mentioned in the Comentarios, were meant to be the Japanese.
Some Aspects of Portuguese Influence in Japan, 1542—1640, p. 14. Crawfurd,
Dictionary, s.v. Japan. Denuc 4 says that Gores is a ‘nom d’origine probable-
ment chinoise et qui parait d^river de Coriai, les Cor^ens’ {Magellan, p. 164);
according to Chassigneux, during the first half of the fifteenth century
numerous Koreans sought refuge in the Liu-Kiu archipelago. Rica de Oro
PLATE XXIII
Rodrigues’ sketch (fol. 42) of an island which
Formosa (p. 525)
must represent
LIU KIU
129
all the people too. He is a tributary vassal of the king of the
Chinese. His island is large and has many people; they have
small ships of their own type; they have three or four junks
which are continuously buying in China, and they have no more.
They trade in China and in Malacca, and some times in com-
pany with the Chinese, sometimes on their own. In China they
trade in the port of Foqew} which is in the land of China near
et Rica de Plata, pp. 76 seqq. Whatever the origin of the word Gores, Pires
was the first European to identify it with the Lequeos, or the inhabitants of the
Liu-Kiu archipelago, from the Chinese name for the present Japanese
Ryukyu or Loochoo Islands. Formosa is, however, included among these
islands on old Chinese and some early Portuguese maps; and much of what is
said here seems to refer to Formosa rather than to Loochoo proper. In his
letter of 10 Aug. 1518, S. P. Andrade says: ‘There are in the sea [far] from
India other lands, which are isles called the Islands of the Lequeos, reaching
as far as the Tartars, where there are great gold mines, and all the merchan-
dise that exists in China, off [the coast of] which they lie two hundred
leagues away; they are white people like Germans.’ Torre do Tomho, Gaveta
15, Mafo 17, No. 27. On the representation of the Lequeos on Rodrigues’ maps
(ff. 39, 43), see Appendix II. Ribeiro’s maps of 1527 and 1529 have, west of
Paragua Island, the inscription: ‘These shoals have channels through which
the Lequios go to Borneo and other parts.’ Penrose’s map has a round mass of
islands called as lecquas east of Canton, between 17'’ and 20° (correct latitude
24° — 30° N.). Homem’s map of 1554 has east oi J. fremoza a group of three
islands called Jlhas dos lequios, and north-north-east of these another island
called lequios', in addition, all these islands and an imaginary vast archipelago
to the east are named, in large letters. Os lequios. Homem’s atlases of 1558
and 1568 have a similar representation, except for the imaginary archipelago
and large letters naming the whole. The atlases of Luis and Dourado have a
group of three large islands, running SSW — NNE, which seem to correspond
to Formosa, the northernmost called lequio pequeno-, further north-east other
islands, corresponding to the Tsubu Shoto group, are called lequio gramde',
between the two groups there are some small islands named Reis magos,
corresponding to the Nambu Shoto group, north of lequio gramde is they, do
fogo, corresponding to Nakano-shima or Suwanose-shima, two islands with
active volcanoes. The islands Reis magos and J. do fogo appear for the first
time on the map of 1554, and then on the others mentioned above.
* Foqem, or Foquem, must certainly be Fukien, the capital and main port
of which is Foochow. But the port intended need not necessarily be Foochow,
which lies some distance up the River Min, and would be less convenient for
traders than places like Amoy, for instance. From Canton to the nearest point
of the seacoast of Fukien province is about 350 miles by sea and about 250
miles by land as the crow flies; Foochow is still 250 miles farther. On the
other hand, the main group of the Liu Kiu islands is 500 miles away, on the
same latitude as Foochow, which seems to point to this important Chinese
port, or some other port of Fukien province, as the more likely to be fre-
quented by the Lequeos. Furthermore, in his two letters written from Canton
in 1526, Vasco Calvo refers to the trade of the Lequeos with Fukien, but does
I H.C.S.I.
Merchan-
dise which
the
Lequeos
bring to
Malacca.
Merchan-
dise they
take from
Malacca
to their
country.
130 TOMl^ FIRES
Canton — a day and a night’s sail away. The Malays say to the
people of Malacca that there is no difference between Portu-
guese and Llequjos, except that the Portuguese buy women,
which the Leqos do not.
The Lequjos have only wheat in their country, and rice and
wines after their fashion, meat, and fish in great abundance.
They are great draftsmen and armourers. They make gilt
coffers, very rich and well-made fans, swords, many arms of all
kinds after their fashion. Just as we in our kingdoms speak of
Milan, so do the Chinese and all the other races speak of the
Lequjos. They are very truthful men. They do not buy slaves,
nor would they sell one of their own men for the whole world,
and they would die over this.
The Lequjos are idolaters; if they are sailing and find them-
selves in danger, they say that if they escape they buy a beautiful
maiden to be sacrificed and behead her on the prow of the junk,
and other things like these. They are white men, well dressed,
better than the Chinese, more dignified. They sail to China and
take the merchandise that goes from Malacca to China, and go
to Japan, which is an island seven or eight days’ sail distant, and
take the gold and copper in the said island in exchange for their
merchandise. The Leqios are men who sell their merchandise
freely for credit, and if they are lied to when they collect pay-
ment, they collect it sword in hand.
The chief is gold, copper, and arms of all kinds, coffers, boxes
(caxonjas) with gold leaf veneer, fans, wheat, and their things are
well made. They bring a great deal of gold. They are truthful
men — more so than the Chinese — and feared. They bring a
great store of paper and silk in colours; they bring musk, porce-
lain, damask; they bring onions and many vegetables.
They take the same merchandise as the Chinese take. They
leave here in [blank], and one, two or three junks come to
Malacca every year, and they take a great deal of Bengal clothing.
not mention Canton (pp. 156, 163). It seems as if Fires mixed up the infor-
mation he received, and his Amqm, Oquem and Foqem correspond to Fukien
perhaps Foochow, which is called Fucheo by Pinto and in the atlases of Luis
and Dourado. It is curious that Mercator’s world map of 1569 and Ortelius’
Atlas of 1570 have a place called Fuquian, near the coast but not a seaport
between Canton and Chincheo,
JAPAN
I3I
Among the Lequjos Malacca wine is greatly esteemed. They
load large quantities of one kind which is like brandy, with
which the Malays make themselves [so drunk as to run] amuck.
The Lequjos bring swords worth thirty cruzados each, and many
of these.
[japan]
The island of Japan {Jampony), according to what all the Island of
Chinese say, is larger than that of the Lequios, and the king is
more powerrul and greater, and is not given to trading, nor [are]
his subjects. He is a heathen king, a vassal of the king of China.
They do not often trade in China because it is far off and they
have no junks, nor are they seafaring men.
The Lequjos go to Japan in seven or eight days and take the
said merchandise, and trade it for gold and copper. All that
comes from the Lequeos is brought by them from Japan. And the
Lequeos trade with the people of Japan in cloths, fishing-nets^
and other merchandise.
• Jampon, or Japan, is only one of the many far-eastern names which are
found in a European form for the first time in Pires’ Suma. Dahlgren, follow-
ing Teleki and Gezelius, wrote in 1911: ‘La premiere fois que le nom du
Japon (Giapam) se retrouve en Europe, est sur la carte de Gastaldi de 1550.
Les debuts de la Cartographie du Japon, pp. 13-15. Yule (Hobson- Jobson)
quotes a letter of 1505, from the king of Portugal to the king of Castille,
which mentions an island Saponin, whither the king of Calicut sent a ship to
fetch some astrological instruments; he thinks, though without any apparent
ground, that the island in question was Japan. It is extraordinary that be-
tween Pires and Gastaldi no extant document mentions the word Japan.
According to Yule, ‘out Japan was probably taken from the M^alay Japun or
Japdng' . Marco Polo’s 'Chipangu represents the Chinese Jih-pin-kwe, the
kingdom of Japan, the name Jih-pin [literally. Sun-root, or Rising Sun]
being the Chinese pronunciation’. Marco Polo, ii, 256. See Crawfurd,
Dictionary, s.v. Japan. Thus the origin of Pires’ Jampon is obvious. On the
possible representation of Japan on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 41), see Appendix.
II. Homem’s map of 1554 is the first Portuguese document where the word
japam appears after Pires. The first special map of Japan by a European is
found in Dourado’s atlas of 1568. In spite of all the controversy about the
names of the first Europeans who visited Japan, it can be asserted that the
discoverers were Fernao Mendes Pinto, Diogo Zeimoto and Simao Borralho,
and that the discovery was made in 1 542, as I have shown elsewhere.
* Panos lucoees might mean 'Lugbes cloths’; but in his description of the
Lugoes Pires does not mention any cloths, which, in any case, were not likely
to be taken by the Lequeos to Japan. It seems more probable that luco ees,
i.e. lucoes, is the plural of lucdo, an old Portuguese word for fishing-net.
132
TOME FIRES
The
Island of
Borneo
(Burney).
Fol. lOjr,
Merchan-
dise which
the Bor-
neans
bring to
Malacca.
[BORNEO]
Borneo is made up of many islands, large and smalB. They are
almost all inhabited by heathen, only the chief one is inhabited
by Moors; it is not long since the king became a Moor. They
seem to be a trading people. The merchants are men of medium
stature, not very sharpwitted. They trade direct with Malacca
every year. It is a country with plenty of meat, fish, rice and sago.
They bring gold, which is of low assay value, lower than any
other gold in these parts; they bring every year up to two or
three bahars of very valuable camphor. A catty of this varies in
value according to the size [of the lumps]: the cate [is worth]
from twelve to thirty or forty cruzados according to the kind and
quality. They have a great many chebulic myrobalans which they
bring to sell.
They bring wax, honey, rice and sago, [which] is a foodstuff
for the lower classes — a sort of bread crumbs made up like
sweetmeats — and is of value. They bring orracas.
They do not pay duties in Malacca; they hand over a present,
which comes to the same thing, because the man who has to
produce it is told by the xabandar what present he has to give.
' When Fires mentions several islands around Borneo, and Tantjompura,
Laue, Quedomdoam, Samper, Cate and Pamucd as separate islands — though
the latter are probably parts of the island of Borneo itself — he shows that he
rejdly thought he was correct in saying: ‘Borneo is made up of many islands,
large and small’. In most cases, however, when Fires mentions Burney he
means simply the port of Brunei. On the representation of Borneo on
Rodrigues’ maps (fols. 35, 36), see Appendix II. In his letter to the king of
Fortugal from Malacca, 6 Jan. 1514, Rui de Brito wrote, perhaps after Fires
had written his references to Burney: 'Borneu is a large island, it lies between
China and the Moluccas, in the open sea of the islands; the people of the
island are called Luzons {lucoees)'. Cartas, iii, 92-3. Barbosa refers to the
‘Isles of Borneo’, also placing them too much to the north, beyond the island
of Solor (Sulu archipelago). Torreno’s map of 1522 has an ysla de burney,
obviously inspired by some drawing similar to that of Figafetta (see note on
Laue, p. 224), and the same applies to the Turin map of c. 1523, on which
there is also the port of bruney, on the isla de bruney. Most of the sixteenth-
century Fortuguese maps do not show the east coast of Borneo, and others,
in which the coastline of the island appears complete, are very fanciful. The
first fairly accurate and complete cartographical representation of Borneo is
found on Berthelot’s map of 1635, where the eastern coast of the island bears
the inscription: ‘This Island of Borneo was circumnavigated by Fedro
Berthelot in the year 1627.’
PHILIPPINES
133
They take clothing from the Kling and from Bengal, viz.
chequered enrolados^ certain kinds of puravas^y synahafos of
all kinds, panchauilizes and synhavas\ they take Chinese arm-
lets of brass; they take a great deal of coloured glass beads from
Cambay, and pearl beads; they ask for red beads; and with these
they go about the islands where there is gold and take it in
exchange for the cloth, and for the beads only.
They have every year two monsoons to bring them and two
others to take them back. They go from Malacca to Borneo in a
month and their junks make the return voyage in another. The
Borneans seems to be peacable men.
[PHILIPPINES]
The Lufoes are about ten days’ sail beyond Borneo. They are
nearly all heathen; they have no king, but they are ruled by
groups of elders. They are a rubust people, little thought of in
Malacca. They have two or three junks, at the most. They take
the merchandise to Borneo and from there they come to
Malacca.
* Puravd, ox pur auaa as written by Pires, is an Indian cotton cloth.
* This is the first European reference to the Philippine Archipelago, called
Lufoes from its largest and north-westernmost island, Luzon. The Philippine
Islands are called ‘by the Indians Lufon, from the principal island which is
called Lufon’, as Pyrard de Laval (ii, 171) says he learned from the Portu-
guese. Galvao (p. 239) informs us that in June 1545 a Portuguese called Pero
Fidalgo left the city of Borneo on a junk, and by contrary winds was driven
towards the north, where he found an island in nine or ten degrees, which
they called dos Lufoes, because its inhabitants were thus named. This voyage
is recorded in the atlases of Luis and Dourado, in an inscription on a fanciful
drawing named Costa de lucoes (Luis, 1563) or OS LVCOIS (Dourado,
1580), which reads: costa de lufoes e laos por omde p° fidalgo vimdo de borneo
num Jumco de chis e coreo com temporal ao lomgo della foi tomar llamao
(Luis; similarly in Dourado). Leaving aside the possible representation of
Luzon by the Lloufam inscribed by Rodrigues (map fol. 36) as a port on the
north coast of Borneo (see Appendix II), this is the first time Lufoes appears
on a map, though the south-east part of the Philippines had already been
represented on Torreno’s map of 1522, as a consequence of Magellan’s
expedition. After that the Penrose map and the map of c. 1540 have a much
better representation of the southern part of the archipelago, which gradually
improved in successive maps. Galvao gives the date of the first known
Portuguese visit to Luzon, but it is quite likely that some other Portuguese
ship on the China voyage had called before at the Lufoes, either on purpose
or by accident. The ‘Account of the Genoese Pilot’ (Leone Pancaldo) says
that when, in March 1521, Magellan’s expedition arrived at the small island
Merchan-
dise they
take from
Malacca
to
Borneo,
Lu9oes
Islands^.
134 TOM^ FIRES
The Borneans go to the lands of the Lufoes to buy gold, and
foodstuffs as well, and the gold which they bring to Malacca is
from the Lufdes and from the surrounding islands which are
countless; and they all have more or less trade with one another.
And the gold of these islands where they trade is of a low quality
— indeed very low quality.
The Lufoes have in their country plenty of foodstuffs, and
wax and honey; and they take the same merchandise from here as
the Borneans take. They are almost one people; and in Malacca
there is no division between them. They never used to be in
Malacca as they are now; but the Tomunguo whom the Governor
of India appointed here was already beginning to gather many
of them together, and they were already building many houses
and shops. They are a useful people; they are hard-working.
Of this family there are now the sons of the Tumunguo and his
wife in Malacca, as well as his mother-in-law, and Curia Raja
and Tuam Brajy who married the Tumunguo’ s wife. In
Minjam there must be five hundred Lugbes, 5ome of them
important men and good merchants, who want to come to
Malacca, and the people of Mjjam will not grant them per-
mission, because now they have gone over to the side of the
former king of Malacca, not very openly. The people of
Mjmjam are Malays.
I have told all about the mainland from Cambay to China,
including some islands near China. Now I will begin to tell of
the great island of Sumatra, going from Malacca to the Moluccas.
The first will be the island of Sumatra and round Gamispola
on the channel side and turning along the Panchur side back to
Gamispola.
And then will come the account of the island of Java {Jaaoa)
and of the kingdom of Sunda mentioning the ports and
their lords, [and the] junks and pangajavas there are in each.
And afterwards [the account] of the island of Solor, and of
Timor, and of Bima, Sumbawa (Cimdaua), Sapeh {Qapee) and
then going towards the Moluccas, etc.
of Malhou, in the south-eastern Philippine Islands, the natives informed
them that ‘they had already seen there other men like them’, which suggests
that possibly even before 1521 the Portuguese had visited the archipelago.
(Cardeal Saraiva edition, Obras completas, vi, 126).
[FIFTH BOOK]
[INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO]
[Sumatra — Java — South-eastern Islands — Banda, Ceram,
Amboina — Moluccas — Central Islands]
[SUMATRA]
D ESCRIPTION or account of the great, rich and popu- poi i6jv
lous Island of Sumatra (Camotora) and of the islands
which are around it, and it will be described all the way
round, beginning at Gamispola along the channel and going
round by Pamchur back to Gamispola.
And first I will tell how many kingdoms it has, and then what
each is like and the trade and the kind of merchandise there is in
the said island and how big it is and what it has in the way of
lancharas and junks.
Beginning from Gamispola there is the kingdom of Ach in Kingdom
(Achei) and Biar Lambry, the kingdom of Pedir, the kingdom of
Pirada, the kingdom of Pase {Pagee), the kingdom of Bata, the Sumatra
kingdom of Am, the kingdom of Arcat, the kingdom of Rupat,
the kingdom oT Siak {Ciac), the kingdom of Kampar {Campar),
the kingdom of Tongkal {Tuncall), the kingdom of Indragiri
(Amdargery), the kingdom of Capocam, the kingdom of Trimtall
' In his description of Sumatra Fires mentions, besides the Gamispola and
other islands, nineteen rdnos (kingdoms) and eleven terras (lands or coun-
tries); Reino de Achey e Lambry, Terra de Biar, Reino de Pedir, Terra de
Aeilabu, Reino de Lide, Reino de Pirada, Reino de Pacee, Reino de Bata, Reino
de Daru, Reino de Arcat, Terra de Yrcan, Reino de Rupat, Terra de Purim,
Reino de Ciac, Reino de Campar, Terra de Campocam, Reino de Andarguerij,
Terra de Tuncall, Terra dejamby. Terra de Palimbdo, Terra de Tana Malaio,
Terra de Qacampom, Terra de Ttdimbavam, Reino de Andallos, Reino de
Pirama, Reino de Tiquo, Reino de Barus, Reino de Quinchell, Reino de Mancopa
or Daya, Reino de Menancabo. In his description of the island, Barros says:
‘When we entered India this great Island was divided into 29 kingdoms. . . .
Beginning from the westernmost and northernmost (though Barros by mis-
take says austral) point of the Island, and going round from the North, the
first is called Daya-, and those that follow, as the coast continues, are Lambrij,
Achem, Biar, Pedir, Lide, Pirada, Pacem, Bara, Daru, Arcat, Ircan, Rupat,
Purij, Cidca, Campar, Capocam, Andraguerij, Jambij, Palimbam, Tana,
Malayo, Sacampam, Tulumbauam, Andaloz, Piridman, Tico, Barros, Quinchel,
Mancopa, which brings us to Lambrij, bordering on Daya, the first we named’
135
Islands
thatform
a channel
from
Kampar
to Palem-
bang,
along
which one
sails to
Java,
Banda
and the
Moluccas.
This is the
merchan-
dise which
is pro-
duced in
the Island
of Sum-
atra itself.
136 TOME FIRES
[Tongkal?], the kingdom of Jambi, the kingdom of Palembang
{Palimbao), the lands of Sekampung {Qafanpotn), Tulang
Bawang {Tulimbavam), Andalas {Andallos), Priaman {Pirjaman),
Tico (Tiguo), Panchur, Baros (Baruez), Singkel {Chinqele), Mela-
bah {Mancopa), Daya, Pirim [Pedir?] — this borders on Lambry
and the islands which are off Gamispola. And from Siak to
Jambi, and from Priaman to Panchur on the other side, is the
land of Menangkabau (Menamcabo), which has three kings.
They are in the interior of the island, and there is a lake of sweet
water in this land of Menangkabau, as will be told when
Menangkabau is dealt with.
Pulo Pisang {Pullo Pifam), Karimun {Carimam), islands of the
Celates which are called ^elaguym gum, Kundur (Sabam),
Buaya, Linga, Tiga {Tiguo), Pulo Berhala {Pullo Baralam),
Banka {Bamca) and Monomby. These will be described in their
place.
It has gold in great quantities, edible camphor of two kinds,
pepper, silk, benzoin, apothecary’s lignaloes; it has honey, wax,
pitch, sulphur, cotton, many rattans, which are canes from
which they make mats. It is used like coir or esparto and serves
as string with which they tie everything up.
(hi, V, i). All these are given as ‘kingdoms’, though Pires discriminates be-
tween ‘kingdoms’ and ‘lands’. Besides some spelling variations — like Bata,
which appears in Barros as Bara — Pires’ Terra de Aeilabu and Terra de Tun-
call are suppressed in Barros, Tana Malaio is given as two separate kingdoms,
and Mancopa and Daya seem to be different kingdoms. The kingdom of
Menancabo is mentioned by Barros in other places. However, the similarity
between the two lists of names (even Daru, which Barros in other places
writes de Aru, is here given as Pires wrote it) is sufficiently striking to suggest
that Barros used Pires’ work, directly or at second hand. Some of the places
here called reinos or terras were simple towns of some trading importance,
like Pedir, Aeilabu, Lide, Pirada and Pacee, on a coast of only eighty-four
miles as the crow flies. Many of them have either totally disappeared or only
survive in the name of some little river or unimportant village. Although
Pires visited many ports on the coast of Sumatra, he knew but little of the
hinterland, and formed his opinion mostly from the information he gathered
in Malacca. But his account is none the less valuable. All other writers before
Pires, Europeans as well as Asiatics, mention only a few places when they
deal with Sumatra; even Barbosa, who wrote a little later, mentions no more
than seven places — Pedir, Pansem, Achem, Compar, Andiagao (Indragiri),
Macaboo (Menangkabau) and Ara (Aru); a couple of centuries had to elapse
before a more complete and accurate description of Sumatra was written.
SUMATRA
137
It has plenty of rice — white and in the husk; it has much meat Food-
and fish, including shad in quantities as large as in Azamor; it
has oils, many wines of their kind, including tampoy^, which is country.
almost like our wine; they have fruits in large numbers, includ-
ing durians, certainly lovelier and more delicious than all the
other fruits.
In the island of Sumatra most of the kings are Moors and Sects and
some are heathens; and in the heathen country some men make a
^ . -11 1 mi Island
practice or eating their enemies when they capture them. The of Suma-
kings on the channel side from Achin to Palembang are Moors, tra.
and from Palembang going around Gamispola are mostly
heathens, and those of the hinterland and who live inland are
heathens also.
The islands which are called Gamispola are two or three and i4or.
more, near the land of Achin and Lamhry. There must be about
ten or fifteen islands three or four leagues round and the sea be-
tween them is two, three or four leagues, and it is twenty or
thirty fathoms near the land^.
* Tampoy is the fruit of the tampoi-tree, a species of Baccaurea, (Euphor-
biaceae), with roundish, thick-skinned fruit borne only a few in a bunch.
Among the several species of this genus, Burkill mentions ‘B. malayana King,
a big tree found in Sumatra, and in the Malay Peninsula in most parts. . . .
The jungle tribes make its fruiting-season an occasion of feasting, and prepare
a fermented liquor from the fruit’. Op. cit., p. 279. The fruits of another
species, Baccaurea Motleyana Muell.-Arg., found throughout western Mal-
aysia, may also be fermented and made into a liquor. Ibid., p. 280. Corner
identifies the tampoi with Baccaurea Oriffithii, a Malaya tree. Wayside Trees
of Malaya, i, 240. Dalgado (s.v.) says that tampoi is the name of the fruit of a
Malacca tree, Artocarpus Gomeziana, from which a very sweet liquor is made.
A. Gomeziana Wall., however, is the native tampang or tapang, not the tam-
poi. See Burkill, p. 253. Eredia, just a hundred years after Pires, describes the
tampoi thus: ‘And the Tampoe is another tree of the same height (as the
Mangosteen), and it has a thick-skinned fruit of the colour of cinnamon, and
in the hollow inside there are sweet seeds like cloves or a head of garlic
with a stone, and as it is sweet and strong they distil from it a wine like
muscatel.’ Fols. i6r. and 19V.
^ Although in the Portuguese text this reads ‘Junto com pom atra de Jlha
de 9omotora’, it must be a transcriber’s mistake. Pires probably wrote ‘Junto
com a ponta da Jlha de fomotora’, as translated.
^ Marco Polo (ii, 300, 307) mentions ‘a very small Island that is called
Gauenispola’. But Gamispola was the name given to the little archipelago
immediately off the northernmost point of Sumatra. ‘These Guanispola
islands are many’, says an early Portuguese rutter. Livro de Marinharia, p.
Islands in
front of
Pose and
Achin
near the
poinP of
the Island
of Suma-
tra.
Gamis-
pola.
TOME FIRES
Kingdom
of Achin
and
Lambry
and the
land of
Biar. •
138
Some of these islands are inhabited by a few people. They
have water and a great deal of fish and firewood. They all have
quantities of sulphur, which supplies Pase and Pedir.
These islands belong to the king of Achin and their inhabi-
tants — few as they are — obey him, chiefly [those of] the largest
[island], which has more inhabitants (?); and there is some trade
in these islands. They come from the island of Sumatra to do
fishing and they catch a great deal of fish which is traded in some
parts of Sumatra.
Achin is the first country on the channel side of the island of
Sumatra, and Lambry is right next to it, and stretches inland,
and the land of Biar is between Achin and Pedir, and now these
countries are subject to the king of Achin and he rules over them
and he is the only king there.
243. The modern names of the four larger islands are W^, Brdeh or Bruas,
Dobad and Bunta, and there are several islets. The Cantino map has Gaspola\
then Rodrigues’ map (fol. 29) has as ilhas de gamispolla; ganyspora on Reinel’s
map of c. 1517, and similarly on later maps. In Luis’ atlas of 1563 and Dou-
rado’s atlases of 1568-80, gamispola appears already transformed into gomes
pola or gomes polla, which is found as well on later maps down to the eigh-
teenth century. Bowrey (pp. 227-8) mentions Pullo Gomus. The four larger
islands are called either Gomes Pulo or Pulo Gomes on the later maps. The
map in Marsden's History of Sumatra still has P°. Gomez as the name of
Bunta, the south-westernmost islet of the group.
* Achey — Atjey or Achin, forms today an autonomous government embrac-
ing all the northern part of Sumatra except for the northernmost tip of Kuta
Raja, through which flows the river Achin. Pires is the first European writer
to mention Achin, and the map of c. 1540 is the first to record achey, with
exactly the same spelling as in Pires.
Lambry — The Lamuri, Lamori or Lamhri of the Arabs, Marco Polo, Friar
Oderic and other medieval travellers. Couto refers to the Lamhri mentioned
by Polo, saying that it ‘still preserves its name in Sumatra’, iv, iii, i. Yule
says in a note that ‘most of the data about Lambri render it very difficult to
distinguish it from Achin’, but in the same note Cordier quotes Groene-
veldt’s opinion {Notes on the Malay Archipelago, 98-100) that Lambri was
‘on or near the spot of the present Achin’. Marco Polo, ii, 300-1. Dames,
however, is of opinion that ‘it may have been near Achin, but not so near as
to be confounded with it’ (ii, 182-4), which he is confirmed by Pires.
Cordier suggests that a village called Lamreh, situated at Atjeh, near Tung-
kup (mentioned by Captain M. J. C. Lucardie, Merveilles de I’Inde, p. 235)
‘might be a remnant of the country of Lameri’. Marco Polo, ii, 301; Cathay,
II, 146. See G. Schlegel, The Old States in the Island of Sumatra, p. 79.
Biar — I cannot find any clear trace of the name of this land, situated by
Pires between Achin and Pedir, with a seacoast corresponding to the present
Krung Raya Bay and Blang Raya.
SUMATRA
139
This king is a Moor, a knightly man among his neighbours.
He uses piracy when he sees an opportunity. He must have
about thirty or forty lancharas in which he goes to sea. When he
is in his own country he livei on the crops of his rices and food-
stuffs. He has rivers which flow through his country into the
channel and they are of little depth at the mouth.
These lands produce meat, rices, and wine of their kind, and
other foodstuffs. They have pepper — not much. The king of
Pedir is always at war with him, and he [the king of Achin] does
him a great deal of damage in his country.
Pedir in the island of Sumatra used to be important and rich Kingdom
and a trading place, and it had dominion over all the above P^dir^-
mentioned kingdoms and also over the land of Aeilahu and the
kingdom of hide and the kingdom of Pirada; and it was at war
with Pase; and Pedir once held the mouth of the channel. And it
had all the trade, and they sailed there more than to Pase.
Until the year fifteen hundred and ten it always had trade.
Its city is about half a league up a river. The bar is two fathoms
deep at high tide. The city contains merchants of all nations
even now. Although it has always war with its neighbours, it has
not yet fallen away much from what it used to be.
As many as two ships from Cambay and Bengal trade with
Pedir every year, and one from Benua Quelim and another from
Pegu; with the first winds up to twenty small junks and lan-
charas set sail with rice. Trang trades with them and Tenasse-
rim, Kedah [and] Bruas. After the taking of Malacca there was
not so much trade, because of the war they had, especially after
the death of king Muzaffar Shah, who died leaving | two small FoL 140'
sons, when others rebelled inside the kingdom and it was always
at war — which is against trade.
* Pedir. The name survives in Pedir Point (Lat. 5° 30' N), Kuala Pedir,
which is the mouth of the principal stream on this part of the coast, and the
large village of Pedir, where there is still ‘an old ruined Portuguese fort’.
Malacca Strait Pilot, p. 40 (1924 ed.). ‘Pedir Point lies in 5^ degrees and
helps to form a bay which extends southwards for one league and a half to
the port of Pedir, and the west side of Pasem lies 17 leagues south-east of
Pedir. The port of Pedir is in 5 ^ degrees and has a bar, which runs south-
eastwards for one league and a half. . . . The coast is rocky up to one league
from the shore as far as Pasem. This point and river are called Jamhuar’
(Jambu-Ayer). Livro de Marinharia, p. 243.
TOM^ PIRES
Aeilabu ^
140
The merchandise that Pedir had, and will have in the future
when the war is over and it comes into its own again: from six or
seven to ten thousand bahars of pepper a year — they say that it
has had as much as fifteen thousand bahars — there is white silk,
benzoin in the country and its neighbours; there is gold, which
also comes to Pedir through the interior; and on account of the
pepper it used to receive a great deal of merchandise, and returns
of one thing and another, which enriched the kingdom and
its city.
And the last four years Pedir must have had from two to three
thousand bahars of pepper a year, and no more. They say that
the land is already returning to what it was before (?); on
account of the war that broke out and of the war that has been
going on up till now, many merchants have le^t. One of the
king’s captains is now reigning in Pedir, anT he threw out one
of the king’s sons, who is now in Pase, out of his kingdom. Pedir
uses tin coins like ceitis for small money; it has gold dramas^,
nine of which are worth one cruzado\ it has silver tangos^ like
those of Siam, Pegu and Bengal, and they are current in the
country at their value, and for merchandise in great quantities
[they use] gold dust. The weight of the bahar is the same as in
Pase.
The country called Aeilabu is on the sea coast beyond the
* There was in India an old coin of little value called dramo, recorded in
some Portuguese dictionaries and in Dalgado {s.v. Dama). Pires’ dramas
might suggest drachmas, but further on, under the heading ‘Coinage and
weights used in Pase’, he clearly specifies that dramas is the local name for
certain small gold coins. In a Chinese book, Ying-yai Sheng-lan (General
account of the shores of the Ocean), written in 1416 by Ma Huan, it is
stated ‘the money used (in Sumatra) are coins of gold and tin. The golden
coins are called dinar and contain seven tenths of pure gold, they are round,
have a diameter of 5 fin official measure (1.6 centimetres) and weigh 2 fin,
(otherwise ch'ieri) 3 li (about 10 grammes)’. Groeneveldt, Notes on the Malay
Archipelago and Malacca, p. 87. It is perhaps not impossible that the Chinese
character here transliterated as dinar sounded rather like what Pires wrote as
drama.
2 Tanga. The name of a coin used in India and other eastern countries.
It was made of different metals and was of varying value. The tanga is still a
monetary unit in Portuguese India, equivalent to sixty reis. Hobson-Jobson and
Dalgado, s.v. See note p. 20.
3 Aeilabu corresponds to Kuala Ayer Lebu, the mouth of the river Tiro,
fifteen miles south-east of Pedir.
SUMATRA
I4I
frontiers of Pedir. This place used to have a king and now it has
a mandarin, a captain vassal to the king of Pedir. This place of
Aeilabu has a city, where there is a little trade. This place has
quantities of pepper and the city is on the sea. It has foodstuffs
for its own use.
The kingdom of Lide is beyond Aeilabu and borders on Lide *
Pirada. The king of this country used to be from Pedir; but not
now. It has places by the sea where some merchandise is traded.
It has merchants. Pegu trade with it, and other places. There is
a good amount of foodstuffs in the land of Lide. There is pepper
and silk in its land. It is friendly with the king of Pedir. This
kingdom now has lancharas which navigate and trade in mer-
chandise. It defends itself against its neighbours; it is strong in
its land. This country is always dependent (?) on Pedir. The
kings are related. This one is a Moorish king. It has foodstuffs
for its own use.
The kingdom of Pirada has more people than the land of Lide Pirada *
and the king is more powerful. He used to be a vassal of Pedir,
but not now. It has two towns by the sea; one of them is called
Medan {Medinay and the other [blanK\. They deal in mer-
chandise. They have pepper and silk which they take to Pedir,
and Lide also takes its [pepper and silk] there. They have factors
in Pedir and are supplied from there. They are related to the
* Sixteen miles east-south-east of Ayer Lebu debouches the river Ulim or
Olim; the small village of Ulim is situated a mile from its mouth. This may
suggest a survival from Pires’ Lidee. E. H. Parker, following Groeneveldt,
writes — ‘east and adjoining Lambri the Ming Records say there was a state
subordinate to Sumoltra called Li-fah (or Li-tai) lying to the west of Nagur
and Sumoltra [or Nakur and Samudra]. This is the exact position of Lide
according to De Barros’ enumeration of the Petty states he visited’ {sic). The
Island of Sumatra, p. 141. According to Schlegel the Chinese Li-fah is a
misprint for Li-te (in a.d. 1416), i.e., Barros’ Lide or Pires’ Lidee. He shows
also that ‘west’ is an obvious mistake for ‘east’. Op. cit., pp. 65-8.
2 Five miles east of Ulim lies Cape Pedada, and a mile eastward is the river
Pedada with a village of the same name near the coast. Seven miles south-east
there is another river Pidada and a place of the same name. Some of these may
correspond to Pires’ Pirada.
3 The Mohit (p. 72) mentions the harbour of Mandara on the east coast,
about the same latitude as Pedada and Pidada. Another place, Madina, is
situated by the Mohit (p. 87) much farther to the south-east, corresponding
to the present Medan. It is possible that Pires confused the order of the
places when he was gathering his information.
TOME FIRES
142
king of Pedir. They have gold. Pirada produces foodstuffs in its
[own] land. They trade with it from many parts. It has trade —
not much. It is powerful enough to defend itself against Pase,
Fol. i4ir. although the people of whom we are speaking | are more cun-
ning than powerful, and they say that the people of Pirada are
extremely malicious, treacherous and untrustworthy. They
sometimes go robbing at sea. They are at war with the Cafres^ on
land.
Kingdom The rich kingdom of Pase has many inhabitants and much
(Pa^Te)^ trade. On one side it is bounded by the kingdom of Pirada, as I
have already said, and on the other by the land of Bata, the king
of which is the Tamjano. The land of Pase stretches along by the
sea coast. Its frontiers on the inland side of the island coincide
with those of the king of Manicopa, which goes out to the sea
on the other side, and with whom they are sometimes at war.
And now, since Malacca has been punished and Pedir is at
war, the kingdom of Pase is becoming prosperous, rich, with
many merchants from different Moorish and Kling nations, who
do a great deal of trade, among whom the most important are the
Bengalees. There are Rumes, Turks, Arabs, Persians, Gujaratees,
Kling, Malays, Javanese and Siamese.
The people of Pase are for the most part Bengalees, and the
natives descend from this stock; and because they are of this
seed, there is a custom in the country which will be described
later, for beyond doubt there is not in the world so vile a way as
that of Pase in dealing with its king.
City of The kingdom of Pase has the city which is called Pase, and
Pase. some people call it (^amotora (Sumatra). Because there is noth-
ing else so important in the whole island, the city has thus given
' From the Arab kafir, ‘unfaithful or unbeliever’, meaning any person not
Mohammedan. ‘A heathen or Cafre\ says Pires farther on (p. 159). ‘The
Heathen whom the Moors name Cafres’, says Barbosa (i, 10), Even the English,
at least once in 1799, have been called ‘Gaffers’! Cf. Hobson-Jobson, s.v.
^ The name survives in the Pase river, in Lat. 5° 9' N. It appears for the
first time on Rodrigues’ maps (fol. 34), as Pacfem, and then on almost every
map down to the eighteenth century. Castanheda refers to ‘the town of Pace,
twenty leagues from Pedir, which lies a league up a river, situated upon its
marshy land’, ii, cxii. There are in fact 84 miles between Pedir and the
modern Pase, which is 20 miles more than Castanheda’s 20 leagues. See above
note on Pedir.
SUMATRA
143
its name to the whole island, being called by either of these
names. This city has not less than twenty thousand inhabi-
tants.
Thus the kingdom of Pase has large towns with many inhabi-
tants towards the interior, where important people of good
breeding live (?). These sometimes disagree with Pase because
of the crops of pepper, silk and benzoin; but they affirm that in
the quarrels their wishes prevail over Pase; and in these towns
there live great nobles of the kingdom, who are called man-
darins, and the men-at-arms.
Pase used to have heathen kings, and it must be a hundred How they
and sixty years now since the said kings were worn out by the
cunning of the merchant Moors there were in the kingdom of
Pase, and the said Moors held the sea coast and they made a had kings
Moorish king of the Bengali caste, and from that time until now
the kings of Pase have always been Moors; except that up till
now they have been unable to convert the people of the
interior; and yet in these kingdoms there are in the island of
Sumatra, those on the sea coast are all Moors on the side of the
Malacca Channel, and those who are not yet Moors are being
made so every day, and no heathen among them is held in any
esteem unless he is a merchant.
As, when the Bengalees made their king, it was on condition
that anyone who could kill the king should become king | what- Fol. 141V.
ever his estate and condition as long as he was a Moor, the
grandees of Pase have from that time agreed that whoever kills
the king becomes king; and they say that on one day there were
seven kings in Pase, because one killed the other and another
the other; and they consider it glorious to die kings and they are
not guarded, because they say that that is God’s command, so
that the kings do not last long in their estate, and whenever one
kills another, he buries the dead one with all royal solemnity,
because that is the custom of the country; and there is no dis-
turbance whatever in the city or among the people and mer-
chants whether king be killed or live.
And because the Bengalees started this rule, the land of
Bengal desired to do the same thing, as it will be seen in the
account of Bengal that for the last seventy years they have been
TOME FIRES
Merchan-
dise of
Pase.
Coinage
and
weights
used in
Pase.
Merchan-
dise which
is traded
in Pase in
junks and
ships.
Fol. I 42 r.
144
doing this in Bengal. And there is no country where this practice
exists and lasts except in Bengal and Pase.
Because on two occasions two kings in Pase had died, ambas-
sadors from Pase came twice in three months to show vassalage
and obedience to Malacca, asking for Portuguese support as the
land and people and kings were slaves of the king our lord; and
they keep on coming to ask this as other kings succeed. And the
king who is now reigning is the son of the king of Pirada.
The city of Pase lies about half a league up the river. And the
river is like the one in Pedir, of that kind, a little wider but not
much. Both rivers have stone pillars (padroes) of ours at their
entrance.
It has from eight to ten thousand bahars of pepper every year.
The pepper from this island is not as good as that from Cochin:
it is larger, hollower and lasts less; it has not the same perfection
of flavour and it is not so aromatic. It produces silk and benzoin,
and in Pase you will find all the merchandise there is in all the
island, because it is collected there.
There are small coins like ceitis. They are tin coins bearing the
name of the reigning king. There are very small gold coins
which they call dramas. Nine of these are worth one cruzado, and
I believe that each one of them is worth five hundred cash.
Above this they have gold-dust and silver. Their bahar of
pepper is less than that of Malacca — five cates, that is twelve
arrdteis less.
The merchants who trade in Pase are Gujaratees, Kling,
Bengalees, men of Pegu, Siamese, men of Kedah and Bruas, and
these are already divided up, so many in | Pase and so many in
Pedir and the remainder in Malacca. They do not trade with
Pase from the east, only with the populous city of Malacca, for
you could make ten cities like Pase out of the city of Malacca at
the time of its punishment — when it received correction for the
blunder it had made.
As for this improvement which Pase received through what
happened in Malacca, when Malacca is reformed — as it is
becoming every day — Pase will return to its former state, and
[so will] Pedir. With the help of God Almighty, the kings firstly
of Pase and Pedir and also all those in this island will be tribu-
SUMATRA
145
taries and vassals to him who now owns Malacca, because other-
wise in a year’s time there will be no Pase and Pedir, and those
who realise it are making themselves vassals before they are
required to do so.
Pase has the right to one maz^ on every bahar of merchandise Duties
that goes out, and it levies anchorage according to whether it is
a ship or junk. They do not pay an)^hing on foodstuffs, only
give a present; on the other merchandise that comes from the
west six per cent, and on every slave they bring there to sell five
mazes of gold; and all merchandise they take out, whether it be
pepper or anything else, they pay one maz per bahar. Neither
Pase nor Pedir has a single junk; they have lancharas — as many as
two, three or four for cargo. They used to come and buy junks
in Malacca. The merchants of Pase buy junks from other mer-
chants who go there from other places to trade, because they are
not made in Pase on account of the scarcity in the country of
jaty wood^, which is strong for junks.
The kingdom of Bata is bordered on the one side by the Kingdom
kingdom of Pase and on the other by the kingdom of Am
(Daruu). The king of this country is called Raja Tomjam*. He is
* A gold weight used in Sumatra, equivalent to one sixteenth of a tael or
ounce. Further on, when dealing with the Malacca coinage. Fires says also
that the tael weighs sixteen mazes. But the value of the maz was variable in
the Far-East. See note on maz p. 124.
'‘■Jaty. Tectona grandis Linn., or teak, ‘the pride of Indian forests’. The
words Kayu jati mean ‘the true, or real wood’. Burkill, op. cit., p. 2127.
Though Corner {op. cit., i, 706) says that the teak tree was introduced into
Malaya from Burma, Siam, E. Java, and the Philippines, it seems that in
Fires’ time it had long been known in Malacca.
3 The Batas, Battas or Bataks were the inhabitants of the hinterland of
northern Sumatra. Barros refers to the Batas who dwell in the part of Suma-
tra over against Malacca and ‘who eat human flesh, the wildest and the most
warlike people in the whole world’ (iii, v, i). Galvao (p. 108) and Eredia
(fol. 23V.), among others, also refer to the cannibalism of the Batas. The
anonymous Portuguese atlas of c. 1615-23 has bata on the north-west, and
Berthelot’s map of 1635 has R. dos batas on the north-east coast of Sumatra,
in Lat. 3“’ N.
^ Raja Tomjam, or Tamjano as written before, must mean ‘Raja of Tomjam’.
Pinto refers to ‘Timorraja, king of the Batas’ (xiii). Castanheda says that the
survivors of the Frol de la Mar went to the ‘town of Temiao in the island of
Sumatra (iii, Ixxviii), and Barros informs us that the shipwreck was in front of
‘a point called Timia in the kingdom of Aru’ (ii, vii, i). ‘The river Tomdo is
in 4^ degrees’, correctly states the Livro de Marinharia, p. 243. This must
H.C.S. I.
K
TOME FIRES
146
a Moorish knight. He often goes to sea to pillage. He is the son-
in-law of the king of Aru. He brought in (?) the ship Frol de la
Mar^ which was wrecked in a storm off the coast of his country,
and they say he recovered everything water could not spoil,
wherefore they say he is very rich. From what they say this
Tomjano is rather wealthy. This Tomjano is often at war in
the hinterland. Sometimes he fights with his father-in-law,
sometimes with Pase, and he helps whichever he sees to be
the stronger, and he receives [something] from them all. They
say that the kings of Bata (Batar) have always had this habit.
He must have as many as thirty or forty well-equiped lan-
charas, which get out into the channel by the rivers there are in
his country, because no one lives on the coast except watchers to
see who goes by. The said land of Bata produces rice and wine
and fruit. It has pitch from which they make many lamps, and
they go there for cargoes of them. It also produces a great deal of
honey and wax and a little edible camphor. The chief merchan-
dise is canes in large quantities which they call rotads^, and these
are good merchandise because they serve for cable and threads
in every way.
The kingdom of Aru is a large kingdom, bigger than any of
correspond to teinaoa on the map of c. 1540, and R. themiam on Berthelot’s
map, in the north-east of Sumatra — the small river Tamian or Tamiang
(there are also a point and a hill called Tamiang, Lat. 4° 25' N). Apparently the
name occurs as Dahnyan in a Persian MS of 1310 and as Tumihan in a
Javanese MS of 1365. Ferrand, Relations de voyages, pp. 261 and 652. A
Chinese account of 1436 says: ‘Tamiang is connected with the territory of
Aru. It is surrounded everywhere by mountains, and possesses a harbour
leading to a large inland stream, surgy and boisterous for a thousand miles,
which rushes into the sea.’ Schlegel, op. cit., p. 86.
' After the conquest of Malacca, Albuquerque sailed back to India, with a
small fleet of four ships, on i Dec. 1 5 1 1 on board the Frol de la Mar (Flower
of the Sea). When the ships were sailing along the north-east coast of Pase
they were caught in a fierce storm and the Frol de la Mar, an old ship, was
wrecked on some shoals, with great loss of life and of all the treasures brought
from Malacca. Albuquerque himself escaped with the utmost difficulty. The
chronicles do not quite agree about the place where the Frol de la Mar was
wrecked, but Albuquerque himself says in his letter of 20 Aug. 1512, written
from Cochin to the King of Portugal, that Frol de la Mar was wrecked near
Pase’. Cartas, i, 67.
^ Rattan, the Malay word rotan, a cane. These canes are made from certain
kinds of palms, mainly of the genus Cr.lamus Linn.
SUMATRA
those mentioned up to now in Sumatra, and it is not rich Fol. 142V.
through merchandise and trade, for it has none. This [king] has
many people, many lancharas. He is the greatest king in all
Sumatra, and the most powerful in plundering raids. He is a (Daru)*.
Moor and lives in the hinterland, and has many rivers in his
country. The land in itself is marshy and cannot be penetrated.
This [king] is always in residence in his kingdom. His man-
darins and his people go robbing at sea, and they share with him
because some part of the armada is paid by them. Since Malacca
began, he has always been at war with Malacca and has taken
many of its people. He pounces on a village and takes every-
thing, even the fishermen; and the Malays always keep a great
watch for the Arus, because this quarrel is already of long stand-
ing and it has always remained, whence comes the saying ‘Am
against Malacca, Achin against Pedir, Pedir against Kedah and
Siam, Pahang against Siam on the other side, Palembang against
Linga, Celates against Bugis {Bajusy, etc.’, and all these nations
fight one against the other and they are very rarely friends.
The people of Am are presumptuous and warlike, and no one
’ Daru is the contraction of the genitive de and Aru. Fires also used the
form Daru in his letter written from Cochin 27 Jan. 1516, where he refers to
the Regno de daru; but it is erroneous to write ‘de daru’. The kingdom or
state of Aru, like most of those mentioned by Fires, has long ago disappeared
from the maps. But the name survives in Aru Bay, on the north-east coast of
Sumatra, and in Aroa Islands, a group of islets lying nearly in mid-channel
between the Sumatran coast and Cape Rachado. Kernel’s maps of c. 1517 and
c. 1518 are the first to show aRu and tfra daRu, immediately north and south
of the equator; L. Homem’s map of 1554 and D. Homem’s atlas of 1558 have
R. daru and trra daru situated in the region of the modern Rokan River. The
Aru river corresponds to the modern Deli River, on which stands the city of
Aru.
2 ‘Cellates est un n^ologisme portugais form6 avec le mot malais seldt
“d^troit”. II a le sens de “gens du d6troit, population maritime vivant dans le
d^troit’,’’ says Ferrand. Malaka, xi, 434. However Fires is quite explicit
when he says a little further on that ‘Celates is the Malay for sea-robbers’.
Crawfurd is milder, calling the Celates ‘the sea-gipsies’. Dictionary, p. 50.
Bajus or Bugis was the name given by the Malays to the dominant race of
the Celebes. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Bugis established
themselves in the Malay Feninsula and other places of the Malay Archipel-
ago. Crawfurd remarked that ‘the Bugis, now the most enterprising of all the
native tribes of the Archipelago, are never mentioned by the earlier European
writers’, such as Barbosa and Barros; and that they ‘are among the most
advanced people of the Archipelago’. Dictionary, s.v.
Food-
stuffs.
Merchan-
dise.
Fair in
this
country.
Kingdom
o/Arcat*.
Fol. i43r.
148 tomi6 fires
trusts them. If they do not steal they do not live, and therefore
no one is friendly with them. They must have a hundred pardos
and more whenever they want them, not very big things, more
adapted for speed than for taking cargo.
The land of Am has plenty of rice, and very white and good
and in large quantities; it has plenty of meat, fish and wines such
as they use, and fruit in great abundance.
It has edible camphor in good quantities; it has gold; it has a
great deal of benzoin, and good; it has apothecary’s lignaloes;
it has rattans, pitch, wax, honey, slaves (men and women); it has
a few merchants. Some of this merchandise is sold by way of
Pase and Pedir and some by way of Panchur, because some of
the land of Am is in the land of Menangkabau, and there they
have great rivers inland along which the whole island of Sumatra
can be navigated, and from these places they get the cloth for
their clothes and other things.
Am has a town in the land of Arqat, where a slave market (of
men and women) is held in certain months, and [it is] open to
all. Anyone who likes can go there in safety; and many people
go there to buy slaves, and some people send there to buy their
sons, and daughters their mothers, and husbands their wives;
and they also deal in other merchandise there; and that is the
way it happens with the Celates, as will be told when we speak of
the Celates robbers in their proper place.
The kingdom of Arcat is bounded on one side by Am and on
the other by Rokan {Yrcan). The king is a Moor. He has a small
country. He has smsXl pardos. He does not do much trade. He is
a vassal of the king of Am. The people of this kingdom on the
sea coast are Celates robbers and those inland live on their
crops.
This country has gold; it has rice, wines, and fish; and they
load dried salt fish here. Only very small pardos can come into
this country along inlets. The king is related to the king of
Am.
' The most important anchorage between the rivers Deli and Rokan is in a
bay where three rivers — Kualu, Bila and Panai — debouch. This bay is
limited on the west by a point called Pertandangan or Perapat. Is it perhaps
reminiscent of Pires’ Arcat?
SUMATRA
149
The land of Rokan is between Arcat and the kingdom oi Land of
Rupat. This country has no king; it has a mandarin. He is a Rokan
vassal of the late king of Malacca. He helped him during the war
with rowers and men-at-arms, who had to serve gratis, just for
their food. Many of these people are Celates, which is the Malay
for sea robbers.
The land of Rokan^ has gold and rice. This [land] has the shad
fisheries, whence they take them to Malacca in large quantities.
And there is also in this country a market of slaves whom they
and other robbers steal, and they come to sell them here and
also in Purim.
The kingdom of Rupat is bounded on one side by Rokan and Kingdom
on the other hy Purim. It is a small kingdom. Most of the people
are robbers in small pardos. This kingdom has the same obliga-
tions to Malacca as the land of Rokan. It helps with people in
war. It also has a little rice, wines, fruit, and they fish for shad in
great quantities and for other fish.
The land of Purim is bounded on one side by Rupat and on Land of
the other by Siak. This country has a mandarin, a powerful per-
son. He is a vassal of the king of Malacca, in the same way as was
said of Rokan and Rupat, and he helps with rowing men in great
numbers. And most of the people in this place are Celates, rob-
bers, and they are brought up on the sea and are great rowers.
This Purim has a larger market for stolen slaves than there is
in the two places of which we have spoken — leaving out Arcat.
This Purim also has many shad and other fish in large quantities.
It has some gold, rice, wines, meat and other foodstuffs. This
mandarin of Purim is an important person and a great warrior.
The kingdom of Siak is bounded on one side by Purim and on Kingdom
of Siak
* Jrcan corresponds to the Rokan River. The first maps on which I find (Ciac)^.
this river are Eredia’s (1613) and Berthelot’s (1635), where it is given as
Aracan.
^ Though the MS has Purim, it is obviously a mistake iotjrcan.
3 Pulo Rupat, a large island just opposite Malacca.
The next island south-east of Rupat is Pulo Bengkalis (the Bamcallis of
Dourado’s atlas of 1580 and other later maps). The north-east point of this
small island is called Parit, perhaps reminiscent of Pires’ Purim, which
farther on is also spelt Porim.
® Ciac corresponds to the Siak River. The map of c. 1540 has Cjace;
similarly on later maps.
Fol. 143V.
Kingdom
of Kam-
par{ Cam-
par)'.
150 TOM^ PIRES
the Other by Kampar {Campar). The king of this place is a Moor.
This country has trade and some merchants. Siak is a country
that has rice, honey, wax, rattans, apothecary’s lignaloes. It has
more gold than the three places we have mentioned; it has wines
and other foodstuffs.
This king is respected in the country. He is related to the
king of Malacca and to the king of Kampar. He is a tributary to
him, and the king of Kampar is a tributary to Malacca for him-
self and for the other, and is defended. His country contains
large rivers which come from far inland. This king has many
pardos, and they are made in his country, because of the amount
of wood there is there.
The kingdom of Kampar is bounded on one side by Siak and on
the other by Campom. In front of this country are the Islands of
Karimun {Carjmom) and of (^elaguy guy and of Kundur
which form the beginning of the channel to Java and other
' Campar corresponds to the Kampar River. Reinel’s maps of c. 1517 and
c. 1518 have campar\ similarly on later maps.
^ Carjmom — Karimun islands. There are two, Great Karimun and Little
Karimun, separated by a deep channel half a mile wide.
(Jelaguy guy — The Sugi islands, east of Kundur island ? Between Kari-
mun and Kundur lies the small Temblas island, the Ambelas of early Port-
uguese rutters (Lat. 1° N), and several others, but none suggests Qelaguy guy
or (^elaguym gum. Pires, however, identifies these islands with the Celates
(p. 136).
Sabam — Kundur island. Following on a modern chart the sailing direc-
tions in Livro de Marinharia, pp. 244-67, we find that the island of Sabam
is unmistakably Kundur island. There is still a small place called Sawang on
the west coast of Kundur, facing the channel. Reinel’s maps of c. 1517 and
c. 1518 have saba south of the equator, at the northern entrance of a channel
between Sumatra and a large archipelago (the present Rhio Archipelago)
south of sangapura. The maps of L. Homem (1554), D. Homem (1558),
Dourado and others, have ‘way out of the canal de sabam' written on the
coast of Sumatra, also south of the equator. However, the Canal de Sabam,
between the Sumatran coast and the islands of Karimun and Kundur, lies
well northward of the equator. But one of Eredia’s maps (fol. 45) has the
islands cariman, ambilas and SABAM forming with Sumatra the ESTRE-
ITO: SABAM (marked with dotted lines), situated north of the equator only
some minutes short of the correct latitude. In spite of modern opinions to
the contrary, there is no doubt that this was the route of the Portuguese ships
sailing from Malacca to the south-east coast of Sumatra and beyond.
Actually the soundings in the shallowest part of the channel, between the
south-west of Kundur and Mendol, are four and three quarter fathoms;
farther south-east, between the Sumatran coast and Pulo Wahu (N.W. of
Pulo Durei), the shallowest part is only three and one quarter fathoms.
SUMATRA I5I
places. The channel between the islands and the land of Kampar
is called Kampar because it begins there.
These kings of Kampar are related to the ex-king of Malacca,
and the present one is married to one of his daughters; he is
called Rajah Audela. His kingdom has no villages on the sea. It
goes in by a river of five, six, or seven fathoms, and there is a
great bore (macareo) in this river: the waters of many rivers meet
in the estuary, and in a short time rises to a great height, and as
it rises it produces waves, so that it overthrows and breaks up
anything it finds; and if those who enter in are not warned to
watch their moment for entering, they are often lost^
This land of Kampar is sterile and of little profit. Run up the
river seven or eight days and there are the villages — not many of
them. The river flows violently and is difficult to navigate on
account of the currents. Almost at the end, by the last village
belonging to the said king, the rivers divide — that of Kampar,
that of Menangkabau and that of Siak; and at the entrance to the
mouth of another river in Kampar another large river^ is found
which makes Siak, Purim, Rupat and Rokan into islands, and
comes out opposite Malacca. Pate Unus came along this with the
tide, because the winds in the channel were already contrary for
getting to Malacca. However he turned the poop into the fresh-
ening wind and fled in the junks. This deed shall long be
remembered^.
’ The Malacca Strait Pilot says that ‘owing to the bore which takes place
and the rapid tidal stream, local knowledge is necessary’ in the Kampar River.
^ There is no other river between the Siak and the Kampar. It is possible
that by this ‘other large river’ Pires meant the narrow and long channel be-
tween the islands Bengakalis, Padang, and Tebing Tinggi on one hand, and
the mainland of Sumatra on the other, which might look like a large river.
He thought that the large island very close to the coast of Sumatra, in front
of Malacca, with narrow channels and the rivers Rokan, Siak and Kampar,
formed the enormous delta of a single river. This misconception was common
to many cartographers and geographers, as is seen in early maps and descrip-
tions of Africa, Asia and America, w'hen their hinterlands were almost or
entirely unknown;
3 In January 1513 Paty Onuz, Patih Yunus or Pate Unus tried to sur-
prise Malacca, bringing a 100 ships with 5,000 men, Javanese from Japara
and Palembang; 'defeated, Patih Unus sailed home and beached his warship
as a monument of a fight against men he called the bravest in the world, his
exploit winning him a few years later the throne of Demak.’ Winstedt, A
History of Malay, 70-1 (following Castanheda, iii, cii). When Alvim in 1513
Merchan-
dise.
Food-
stuffs.
Land of
Campo-
can’.
152 TOME FIRES
This kingdom has a great deal of apothecary’s lignaloes. It
is called garuu in Malay and agujlla in India. It has gold, pitch,
wax, honey. It is bounded inland by the [land of] the kings of
Menangkabau, and trades with them.
It has rices, meats, tampdes wines — all these in moderation, to
feed their land. They take their merchandise to Malacca and bring
back Kling and Gujarat cloth, which is valued throughout the
island, and red cotton cloth is valued the most in Menangkabau.
The land of Campocan is between Kampar and Indragiri.
This country used to have a king. For the last ten years it has had
visited Japara, Pate Unus sent him presents, asking the Portuguese not to burn
the famous junk, and no harm was done. In a letter to Afonso de Albuquer-
que, from Cannanore, 22 Feb. 1513, Fernao Peres de Andrade, the Captain of
the fleet that routed Pate Unus, says: ‘The junk of Pate Umuz is the largest
seen by men of these parts so far. It carried a thousand fighting men on
board, and your Lordship can believe me . . . that it was an amazing thing to
see, because the Anunciada near it did not look like a ship at all. We attacked
it with bombards, but even the shots of the largest did not pierce it below
the water-line, and [the shots of] the esfera [an old large kind of cannon] I
had in my ship went in but did not pass through; it had three sheathings, all
of which were over a cruzado thick. And it certainly was so monstrous that
no man had ever seen the like. It took three years to build, as your Lordship
may have heard tell in Malacca concerning this Pate Umuz, who made this
armada to become king of Malacca.’ Cartas, iii, 59. Barros, ii, ix, 4. Correia
says that Pate Unus appeared before Malacca ‘on a morning of January 1512
(ii, 277), and Castanheda describes the event as having taken place in 1512
(Joe. cit.); but they are obviously mistaken, unless here the year was excep-
tionally reckoned as beginning at Easter, which does not seem to be the case.
Malacca was taken in the middle of August 1511, and Albuquerque sailed
back to India in December; between the departure of Albuquerque and the
coming of Pate Unus many other well-known events took place (described by
Barros, ii, ix, i and 2, Castanheda, iii, Ixxxi-lxxxvi, and Correia himself).
Moreover, Andrade says in his letter that they had the first news of the com-
ing of Pate Unus on Christmas Day 1512, and Barros rightly says that the
enemy fleet appeared before Malacca ‘at the beginning of January 1513’.
Further on, when describing the ‘Land of Demak’, Pires says that Pate Unus
‘came to fight (against Malacca) in the year 1512’; though not expressly
stated, this refers to his departure from Java, of course. When describing Japara
(p. 188) and the early establishment of the Portuguese in Malacca (p. 282),
Pires refers to this case with more detail. Dames thinks that Pateudra or Pate
Udora mentioned by Barbosa is identical with Pate Unuz (ii, 190-1); but
later on Pires’ account shows clearly that Pate Unus and Pateudra, or Pate
Andura, were different persons.
' Between the rivers Kampar and Indragiri there is the small river Kate-
man, the upper part of which is called Simpang-kana; this may correspond
to Pires’ Campoquan, Campom or Campocan.
SUMATRA
153
a mandarin. It is a small country and this mandarin is a vassal of
Malacca. This country has a few merchants. They take gold to
Malacca, and bring back Kling or Gujarat cloth.
This country of Campocan has gold; it has apothecary’s lign-
aloes; it has wax, honey, pitch, rattans, and things that Kampar
has. It is a small country and good. In front of it are | the islands Fol. i44r.
of Buaya^ which form the channel, because all along the coast of
Sumatra the different places follow each other and so do the
islands (?). It has plenty of foodstuffs for its needs: rices, meats,
fish, wines, fruit, and many mats, dried fish in quantities.
The kingdom of Indragiri is bounded on one side by the land Kingdom
of Campocan and on the other by the land of Tongkal {Tunqall). oflndra-
Indragiri is an important kingdom. It has a fair number of trad- ^^ndar-
ing people, and people go there from many places to trade. It is guery).
the chief port of Menangkabau.
The kings of Indragiri are related to the kings of Malacca and
of Kampar and of Pahang. The country is not very large, but the
people are accustomed to trade. The merchants who go there are
not badly treated. They come to Malacca from Indragiri, be-
cause Indragiri comes under Malacca like Kampar.
Indragiri does business and trade with a certain part of the
land of Menangkabau in the interior, where they collect great
deal of gold by hand with which they buy many cloths, and in
this way they do their trade. It produces the same merchandise
as Kampar, but in greater abundance, and also foodstuffs and
meat. Opposite Indragiri are the Linga islands.
The land of Tongkal is joined on one side to Indragiri and on Land of
the other to the land of Jambi (Jamby). This country has no king Tongkal
nor mandarin. It is a country which is obedient to Malacca as a
tributary. It is a small country. It also borders on Menagkabau.
It has the same merchandise as Indragiri, but not in such
quantities. It has enough foodstuffs for itself and for others.
Opposite are the islands of Calantiga?
' Pulo Buaya lies north-west of Linga, in the middle of several islets
(Lat. 0° 10' N).
^ Tuncall — There is a river Tongkal between Indragiri and Jambi. Berthe-
lot’s map of 163s has Toncal.
3 Twelve miles westward of Pulo Singkep there is a group of three small
islands, each with some islets around it, the central one of which is Pulo
154
TOM^ PIRES
Land of
Jambi
(Jamby)'.
Fol. 144V.
Land of
Palem^
bang
(Palim-
bam)%
The land of Jambi is attached at one end to the land of Tong-
kal and at the other side to the land of Palembang (Palimbdo),
inland to Menangkabau, and opposite are the islands of Pulo
Berhala {Berellay. This country used to have a king. It is like
Indragiri, and after the Javanese Moors began to grow powerful
and took Palembang, they took Jambi, and they were called
kings no longer, but they are called pates^, which means man-
darins in Malacca, and in our languge really [means] governors
with capital powers, both civil and criminal over every person in
their lands. They have full jurisdiction, only they have lost the
name of kings, and have become pates, as will be told in speaking
of the great Java. The said land of Jambi produces apothecary’s
lignaloes, and gold, and the merchandise of Tongkal and the
other places. And there are already more foodstuffs here. It is
under Pate Rodim, lord of Demak (Demaa). The people of the
land of Jambi are already more like Palembangs and Javanese
than Malays. The land is fertile and rich in its way.
All the kingdoms we have mentioned from Arcat up to here
have a great many lancharas. They all trade in Malacca, all the
year round, and it is all Menangkabau land and they are all
Malays.
The large country of Palembang is bordered on one side by
Jambi and on the other by the point and end of the island of
Alang Tiga. These are Pires’ fthas de Calamtigua, which he referred to
before as Tigua. They appear clearly marked on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 30)
as cardtiga.
’ The Jambi territories, through which flows ‘the largest and most beauti-
ful’ river of Sumatra, the Jambi River, form today a province with the city of
Jambi as capital. L. Homem’s map of 1554 is the first to show it asjamvim.
^ This Pullo Berella seems to correspond to Pulo Singkep, the southern-
most island of the Linga group. The name survives in the Berhala Strait,
between Singkep and Sumatra. There is, however, a Pulo Berhala in the
north part of the Malacca Strait, which was called Ilha da Polvoreira by the
Portuguese. ‘An island, which our men call Poluoreyra and the natives
Barala\ says Barros, II, vi, i and 2. A polluoreira appears for the first time on
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 29).
3 This is the first explanation of the word pate or patih, at least by an
European writer. Many later sixteenth-century writers define this term, but
no one so completely as Pires. The title is still in use for some native Java
dignitaries.
The territories of Palembang form today a province of southern Sumatra
through which flows the Palembang or Musi River. It has the city of Palem-
SUMATRA
155
Sumatra which is called Tana Malay o and from the interior and
the sea along the way to Pansur or Panchur, it is bordered by
Sekampung (Caupd), Tulang Bawang (Tulumbavam), Andalas
{Andallds), and in the interior by the land of Priaman {Pyra-
mam) which is in the land of Menangkabau. Palembang has the
islands of Monomby^ and the islands of Banka {Banco) in front of
it in the channel. Palembang belongs to Pate Rodim, lord of
Demak. Most of the people of Palembang are heathens of low
class, and [there are] also many heathen
The land of Palembang used to have heathen kings of its own
and it was subject to the cafre king of Java, and after the Moor-
ish pates of Java had made themselves masters of the sea coasts,
they made war on Palembang for a long time and took the land,
and it had no more kings, only pates, and Palembang has ten or
twelve chief pates. Palembang has about ten thousand [men ?]
many of whom lost their lives in the Malacca war against us.
The land of Palembang is the best thing Pate Rodim has,
better than his own country, and it has now been destroyed by
us, [and so have] all his junks and champanas^, and all the lords
of Palembang were killed in the defeat of Pate Unus. Even
though the Palembang people came to fight at Malacca very un-
willingly, all those who came died. And because this fact does
not belong to this place I will return to the description and
account of Palembang.
Palembang trades in Malacca and it trades largely with
Pahang. Palembang has many junks and cargo pangajavas. Ten
bang as capital and seat of the Government Resident. Rodrigues’ map (fol.30)
is the first to record Palembang as as tres bocas de pallamham, placing them
accurately. The Palembang River has really three mouths — the main entrance
is Sungi Sunsang (Musi), navigable as far as Palembang for vessels that can
cross the bar, a distance of fifty-four miles; the two eastern mouths, Sungi
Saleh and Sungi Upang, are not navigable. The Comentdrios de Afonso de
Albuquerque (ill, xvii) and Barros (ii, ix, 4, etc.) mention another Polimbao
or Polimbatn in Java, (see G. Ferrand, Malaka, i, 412-4); several Portuguese
cartographers, like the anonymous author of the c. 1540 map, L. Homem,
D. Homem, Luis, Dourado and Lavanha, insert also a Polimbatn in the
north-east of Java. Pires knew better.
* Near the west end of Banka island rises the Menumbing or Monopin hill
(455 metres); this conspicuous elevation appears for the first time on Rodri-
gues’ map (fol. 30) as mondpim.
2 Champana, from the Malay sampan, is a small East Indian craft.
156 TOM^ PIRES
or twelve junks would come to Malacca every year [laden with]
white rice and many good vegetables, and this rice is the chief
merchandise. They also have many slaves for merchandise; they
have plenty of cotton; they have rattans in large quantities; they
have some gold, a great deal of rice in the husk; they have pitch,
iron; they have a great deal of wax, honey, many wines, meats;
they even bring an infinite quantity of garlic and onions, which
are good merchandise; they have a great deal of black benzoin in
large quantities, which is used in Bonuaquelim and in Macassar
{Marcagar), Tanjompura and in the other islands.
In Palembang they use a large amount of clothing of the
coarse [kind] from the Gujaratees and from the Kling. They spend
all the money they get for the merchandise in Malacca, as well
as what they bring in gold, as all those who come to Malacca do;
they load up with merchandise taking a large quantity of Kling
clothing.
Islands In front of Siak the islands of Pulo Pisang {Piga)\ in front of
which Kampar the islands of Karimun (Carimam) and the Selat
foTitt the ^ ^ ^
channel, {(^elates) and Kundur (Sabam). These produce a few foodstuffs
and are inhabited. Opposite Capitam^ the islands of Buaya;
opposite Indragiri the islands of Linga {Lingua).
As I have already said of the islands of Linga in [the account
of] the lands under the jurisdiction of the kingdom of Malacca,
they are thickly populated; they have a king; they are perfect
knights; they have up to forty lancharas; they have many
lancarias^\ Linga has apothecary’s lignaloes ; it has a great deal
Fol. J45r. of rice and foodstuffs; the land is good, [ it defends itself against
enemies. This [king] is like a king of the Celates. He is feared
and powerful — more than Kampar; the land is similar; his
country has some trade. These islands must have four or five
* It is possible that the river Kateman, which in fact debouches in front of
Pulo Buaya, corresponds to Capitanv, or perhaps this is simply another
spelling of Campocan.
^ Lancarias or lanparias, from lanpa, may mean lancers. However, there is a
fruit-tree in the East Indies called lanceira {Lansium domesticuni). Further,
Orta (xxiv) refers to the lancuaz that is found in Java. This is the Alpinia
gaianga Willd., the Greater or Java-galangal. But this could hardly be Pires’
lancarias, as in his later letter of 27 Jan. 1516 he refers to the gaianga and its
countries of origin, without mentioning either the name lancuaz or any of the
East Indies regions.
SUMATRA
157
thousand men, and from the point of them opposite the islands
of Buaya lies the channel to Pahang and Bintang {Bynta) and to
Siam and all these other parts.
And in front of Tongkal are the three islands which are called
Calantiga. These are desert and have no inhabitants; they have
good water.
And in front [of Jambi] the islands of Berhala are also un-
inhabited. Some Celates sometimes take shelter there; they have
plenty of water.
And in front of the first land of Palembang [are] the islands of
Monomby. These islands are as thickly populated as Linga, and
they are to some extent subject to Pate Unus, but not entirely.
They have mandarins; they have a great many lancharas; they
have apothecary’s lignaloes; they have wax and honey; they
have many foodstuffs in plenty. Monomby and Banka are all one
land which belong to Pate Unus of Japara {Japera). Beyond
Monomby in front of the latter part of Palembang are the islands
of Banka. These have a pate; they belong to Pate Unus, a
Javanese Moor. These islands have about a thousand inhabi-
tants; they used to have seven or eight thousand. They have
apothecary’s lignaloes; they have wax, honey, iron, cotton; they
have many foodstuffs.
In front of Tana Malaio is the island which is called Lucipara
{Lufeparijy. This is at the end of the channel. To the east-
north-east of this island it is all islands and shoals, and to the
east is the channel to the Moluccas [Maluqo), and from the
south-west to the east-south-east is Java, and from the south-
west to the east is the kingdom of Sunda; and from Lucipara
to the first land of Java, which will lie to the east-south-east or to
the south-east, will be a hundred and twenty leagues to the first
land to be reached in Java and the island of Mandelika {Manda-
lica), which is over against the land of Japara [Jarapard), three
or four leagues from the port of Pate Unus. If I am not very
accurate in this chapter I refer to the [proper] chapters, so as not
to digress. Our ships can go from Lucipara to the land of Japara
in three days and nights with a monsoon wind.
^ Lufeparij — Lucipara. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 30) has nufapare (Mas Pari
in Malay).
Tana
Malaio*.
Land of
Sekam-
pung
(Qacam-
pom)^.
Fol. 145V.
Land of
Tulang
Bawang
(Tulim-
bavam).^
158 TOME FIRES
At the end of the land of Palembang is the land which is called
Tana Malaio. It has the islands of Lucipara in front of it, and
there are two channels formed with this island: one on the
Palembang side, and another better one against the islands of
Banka. And this land borders on the land of Sekampung. This
land has a pate\ it has a great deal of cotton; it has rattans, pitch;
it has many foodstuffs in plenty; it has some gold. They say that
Paramifura, the founder of Malacca, came from this land, as
has already been said.
Now we begin to round the island almost in a westerly direc-
tion. Sekampung is a large country. It has on one side the land
which is called Tana Malaio and on the other Tulang Bawang.
This country is plenteous; it has a pate\ he trades in Sunda
and in Java; and this country’s trade with Sunda is large.
They say that it is in sight of Sunda. This country has a great
abundance of cotton; it has a little gold; it has plenty of honey,
wax, pitch, rattans; it has some pepper, and good they say;
it has plenty of rice, meat, fish, wines, fruit. According to
what they say, this pate is a Cafre, and his people are. | In
the hinterland they are Cafres, as it is certain that they are
almost all heathen in the hinterland of Sumatra, and they are
not subject to anyone. They cross to Java in three days in
lancharas, and they say that they go to the land of Sunda in
one day.
The land of Tulang Bawang borders on Sekampung on
' Tana malaio or Tana Malayu means the Malay country. Ferrand seems
to decide on Tidentitd de I’ancien Malayu et du Minankabaw actuel. Plus
vraisemblablement encore, le Minankabaw dtait I’Etat souverain de I’ancien
royaume de Malayu dont faisait ^galement partie Palemban. . .’ Malaka, le
Malayu et Malayur, ii, 79. According to Pires’ account, Tana-Malayu corre-
sponds to the south-eastern part of the present Palembang Residency
^ flacampom corresponds to Sungi Sekampung (Lat. 5° 35' S.) ‘the largest
stream of the south-east coast of Sumatra’ southward of Tanjong Sekopong
(Lat. 4° 56' S.), 'a rounded prominent point’. China Sea Pilot, ii. Lavanha’s
map of Java in his first edition (1615) of Barros’ Decada Quarta da Asia,
shows the south-east corner of Sumatra, where (fiacampa is situated south of
Palimbd. Actually the coast runs due south, not almost ‘in a westerly direc-
tion’ as Pires asserts.
3 Tulimbavam corresponds to the Tulang Bawang (Lat. 4° 24' S.), about
the largest river on this coast northward of Sekopong. Thus it is necessary to
alter the relative situation of the names, because Pires placed Tulimbavam
south of Qacampom. This is confirmed when he says that (fiacampom ‘is in
SUMATRA
159
one side and on the other on Andalas; in the hinterland it is
bounded by Cafre kings. They say that this one is also a heathen
or Cafre. This country has pepper; it has gold and the
things that Sekampung has; it has lancharas, it has many
foodstuffs; it has large rivers in its lands, where its villages are.
In these places it is a strong country, because there is only one
fathom of water at the entrance of the rivers. They trade in
Java and in Sunda, and they do not trade with them in their
own country; they take their merchandise there. They have a
large quantity of cotton and from here they cross to Java in
two days.
The kingdom of Andalas is bounded on one side by the land Land of
of Tulang Bawang and on the other by the rich kingdom of
Priaman, and in the hinterland by the kings of Menangkabau. In
front of it, a day and a night’s journey away, it has the land of (Am-
Sunda, and between Andalas and Sunda is the sea; and the Pallor)'.
Gujaratees used to come over this to Java and to Grisee (Agracy)
to take in cargoes of cloves, nutmeg, mace, and white sandal-
wood, cubeb, etc., because they said that it was all shallows and
banks between this Andalas and Sunda and that it was not
navigable — that is what they told us — which is not so, because
it is deep and easily navigable and it always used to be navigated
by the Gujaratees before Malacca collected their merchandise
where they all gathered together; and then the Gujaratees ceased
making this voyage, although navigation with the monsoon was
good, because they came in by Sunda and ran along the coast of
Chi Manuk (Chemano) and Pemano, Cherimon {Chorobam), all
along the land of Demak (Demaa) and Japara, and they turned
sight of Sunda’, and that from (^acampom they cross to Sunda in one day, and
from Tulang Bawang to Java they cross in two days.
* Andallor must be a transcriber’s mistake for andallos, or andalaz, as rightly
written before. According to Pires’ account, the coast of Andalaz was the
northern shore of the Sunda Strait. Andelis or Tanah Andalas (Land of
Andalas) was the name given by several early writers to the south-east part of
Sumatra, where there are still two places called Andalas, or even to the whole
island. Ferrand, Malaka, 1, 455, 456, 483. In the centre of Menangkabau,
West Coast Residency, there is a village Andalas (Lat. 0° 55' S., Long. 100°
54' E.). On L. Homem’s map of 1554, in the southernmost part of Sumatra,
there is written andrelas, which undoubtedly is a mistake for andalas or Pires’
Andalaz) D. Homem’s atlas of 1558 also has andrelas and Vaz Dourado’s
atlases have amdrelhas, but farther north.
Kingdom
of
Priaman
(Pyra-
ma)^.
Land of
the king-
dom of
Tico
(Tiguo) 3 .
l6o TOM^ PIKES
towards Tubani and from there to Grisee, all of which they
did with one wind.
From the kingdom of Andalas I follow round the land, veer-
ing to the north-west until I reach the islands of the Gamispola
group, and where it begins to turn, the land shows us the king-
dom of Priaman. Priaman is bounded on one side by Andalas
and on the other by Tico, and in the hinterland by Menang-
kabau. This is a heathen kingdom and the king is a heathen.
Three kingdoms join together here on this coast, to wit, Pria-
man, Tico and Panfur or Panchur or Baros. All these are rich,
and the Gujaratees come here every year with one ship, or two or
three, with merchandise. They dispose of it and take away their
return [loads] as will be told when we finish speaking of these
three kingdoms. The kingdom of Priaman has many horses,
which they go and sell continuously in the kingdom of Sunda.
This land of Priaman has plenty of gold, apothecary’s lign-
aloes, camphor of two kinds, benzoin, silk, wax, honey; it has
foodstuffs in plenty for its own land; it does a great trade with
the land of Sunda.
The kingdom of Tico (Tiquo) joins on to Priaman on one side
and on the other it joins on to the land and kingdom of Panchur;
^ Chemano — The Chi Manuk River that debouches on the north coast of
Java. Barros (iv, i, xii), says that this river Chiamo or Chenano divided Java
into two parts, like a channel, from north to south, and it was represented
accordingly on Lavanha’s map of Java.
Pemano — Perhaps Pasuruan, on the north coast of Java, Madura Strait,
which Lavanha’s map represents as Panian.
Chorabam — Cherimon, a place on the north coast of Java, which appears
for the first time on the map of c. 1 540 as cherbom.
Dema and Japara — Places on the mid north coast of Java. The map of
c. 1540 has the two names for the first time, but dema, or modern Demak, is
wrongly situated east of Japara. Japara is found for the first time on Rodri-
gues’ map (fol. 30) — gepara lugar de pate Nuz — as well as in one of the
Rodrigues’ drawings of Java (fol. 108) — Japara porto de pate Nauz.
Tubam — Tuban, a port eastward of Japara. Tubam on Rodrigues’ maps
(fol. 30) and drawings (fol. 103).
2 Priaman river, harbour and town are situated about the middle of the
west coast of Sumatra. Prim on L. Homem’s map of 1554 and Priam ao on
Berthelot’s map of 1635.
5 The roadstead and town of Tico or Tiku are situated on the west coast of
Sumatra (Lat. 0° 25' N.), where the river of the same name debouches. L.
Homem’s map of 1554 has ticos’, Tico on Eredia’s map, and in the atlas of
c. 1615-23.
SUMATRA
l6l
in the hinterland it joins on to the land of Menangkabau. They
say that the king is a heathen, and others say that he is a Moor.
This [kingdom] has the merchandise we mentioned for Pria-
man, which Pansur also (?) has. This kingdom has many people
and does a great trade with the Gujaratees.
It now falls to us to speak of the very rich kingdom of Baros, ^4^^
which is also called Panchur or Pansur. The Gujarat people call ,
r r Kingdom
it Panchur^ and so do the Persians, Arabians, Kling, Bengalees, of Baros
etc. Sumatra calls it Baros (Baruus). It is all one kingdom, not (Barus)'.
two. It is bounded by Tico on one side and on the other by the
land of the kingdom of Singkel; in the interior it has its dealings
with the Menangkabaus, and in front of it, in the sea, it has the
island of Nias {Minhac Barras), about which we will speak.
This kingdom is at the head of the trade in these things in all
the island of Sumatra, because this is the port of call through
which the gold goes, and the silk, benzoin, camphor in quanti-
ties, apothecary’s lignaloes, wax, honey, and other things in
which this kingdom is more plentiful than any of the others
described up to now. Benzoin from Baros, Tico and Priaman is
plenteous in the island of Sumatra and very white.
These three kingdoms we have described, to wit, Panchur,
Tico, and Priaman, are the key to the land of Menangkabau,
both because they are all related, and because they possess the
sea coast, so that the Gujaratees come there every year and do a
great trade; and all the merchandise is gathered together in
these kingdoms and they do their trade with the said Gujaratees.
One, two or three ships come every year; they sell all their
clothing, and take in a great deal of gold and silk, much benzoin,
much lignaloes, camphor of two kinds — a great deal of the
edible kind — much wax, much honey. The Gujaratees dispose of
all this merchandise because it is made up of goods consumed
* The once famous port of Barus or Baros, on the north-west coast of
Sumatra, is today an unimportant place, though healthy and the permanent
residence of a government representative. L. Homem’s map of IS 54
bairos and D. Homem’s atlas of 1558 has baros, the latter form occurring on
other later maps. It appears as Fansur in the Mohit. G. Schlegel says that
‘Fansur or Pantsur represents the Malay name Pantjur, water gushing out of
a pantjuran, a gutter or aqueduct’. ‘Fansur is the Arab pronunciation of the
yi&X&y pantjur' . Op. cit., pp. 9 and 79.
L
H.C.S. I.
Island
which is
called
Nias
(Maruz
Minhac)'
162 TOME FIRES
in the country, and the people are many, and it goes from there to
Sunda and to the Maidive {Diua) Islands, — because the Maidive
Islands reach to opposite Sunda, and go on along the whole of
Sumatra on the western side up to Gamispola and up to Canna-
nore, and from these parts they go to the Maidive Islands in five
days, according to the statements of the merchants who sail
from the Maldives { ?)
So having done their trade the Gujaratees return wealthy, and
they sell and trade as they will. The pilots say that the route from
Baros to Sunda is not very clean, and that up to Baros it is clean all
along close to the land. I went behind this island a matter of fifteen
leagues, and close to the land we found twenty-five fathoms.
In front of the kingdom of Baros is this island which is called
Nias. It has many people; it has fish oil and a great deal of dried
fish and rice. They say that opposite to Priaman there is an
island \blankY where there are only women and they have no
men, and that they are got with child by others who go there to
trade and who go away again at once and that others are made
pregnant by the wind. This opinion is held by the people of
these parts, in the sam.e way as the enchanted queen in the hill
of Malacca called Gunong Ledang {Gulom Leydam)? The
‘ In front of Baros lies Nias, the largest of the islands off the west coast of
Sumatra. Marsden says that ‘on the western side of Nias, and very near it, is
a cluster of small islands, called P^. Nako-nako [Naku Archipelago], whose
inhabitants are of a race termed Maros’. History of Sumatra, p. 478. The
native name for the island of Nias is Tano-niha (land of the people). It seems
as if Maros and Tano-niha are combined in Pires’ Maruz Mjnhac or Mjnhac
Maruz. The Mohit (p. 71) refers to the many islands named Micdmdrds,
lying off the north-west coast of Sumatra, which clearly correspond to Pires’
Mjnhac Maruz. One of Eredia’s maps (fol. 24V.) has Pulomds, though south
of the equator, and Berthelot’s map has P.miaes.
^ This must be Siberut, the largest and northernmost of the Mentawei
Islands. Pigafetta tells a similar story: ‘Our oldest pilot told us that in an
island called Ocoloro, which lies below Java Major, there are found no
persons but women, and that they become pregnant from the wind.’ Robert-
son’s edition, ii, 169-71. Marsden says that in south-eastern Sumatra ‘they
believed the inhabitants of the island Engano to be all females, who were
impregnated by the wind’. The History of Sumatra, p. 297. Yule refers to this
very old fable and suggests that Pigafetta ’s Ocoloro and Engano are perhaps
the same. Marco Polo, ii, 406.
3 Gulom leydam corresponds to Eredia’s monte de Gunoledam, ‘a lofty
mountain, about half a league (9022 feet) high, a little more than a league
around the base, and quite isolated’, where, ‘according to the Malay fable,
SUMATRA 163
people believe in this, as others believe in the Amazons and the
Sybil of Rome.
The kingdom of Singkel is bounded on one side by the king- Kingdom
dom of Baros^ and on the other by the kingdom of Melabah
(Mancopa) or Daya, and in the interior by strong, savage, bestial chell)*.
people who eat men. This king is a heathen. This [kingdom] has
benzoin, silk, some pepper, a little gold; it has small lancharas;
it has rivers; it is not a very rich affair. They say that throughout
this kingdom they eat men who are enemies. They trade here
from Base and in the kingdoms of Baros, Tico, Priaman.
The kingdom of Mancopa or Daya^ (it has both these names) Fol. 146V.
is bounded on one side by Singkel and on the other side it goes
almost as far as the islands hard by the land of Lamhri. This Mela-
king is a heathen. In the interior it is bounded by [land in- 6a/; (Man-
habited by] strong brutal people of the mountains range that
goes above Pase and Pedir. This king’s country is large. Inside
the country he is a powerful warrior king. The enemies they
capture they eat. They trade there from Pase and Pedir. They
do not eat [all] men, only those with whom they are at war. This
[kingdom] has silk, benzoin and things from that part. Those
who go there go in small pardos. They bring cloths from Cam-
bay of the coarse [kind].
And since the account of the whole of the island of Sumatra Kingdoms
all around is now done in accordance with the promise [in the
^ angkaoau
account of its] first country, it would not look well now to leave (Menan-
cabo).
that Queen Putry, companion of Permicuri, who founded Malacca, withdrew
into retirement, and there by magic art remained immortal to the present
day’ (fol. 32). Putri means a princess. Two of Eredia’s maps (fols. 1 1 and 13)
have Gunoledam Monte, correctly situated. This is Mount Ophir (Gunong
Ledang =the huge mountain), 4187 feet high, just north-east of Malacca.
’ Quinchell, or chinquele as written before — The Singkel River debouches
on the north-west coast of Sumatra, near Singkel roadstead and Singkel point.
Berthelot’s map has Senquil.
^ Although in the MS it is written Pdo, this is obviously a transcriber’s
mistake.
3 Mancopa corresponds to Melabah, a port and point on the north-west
coast of Sumatra (Lat. 2° 46' N.). Barros says that when Diogo Pacheco went
to discover the Ilhas do Ouro, he sailed around the north of Sumatra towards
Baros, and arrived in front of the ‘Kingdom of Daya, which would be some
twenty leagues from that of Achem, which is towards the west on the point
of the Island’ (in, iii, 3b
TOM^ PIRES
164
the kings of Menangkabau without speaking of them, because
they are favoured with gold, the metal which God chose.
The kings of Menangkabau are three. The chief one is called
Raja Qunci Ter as ^ which is the place where he resides; the
second is called Raja Bandar, brother of the king already
mentioned; the third is called Raja Bongo or Buus^. These are
the kings of Menangkabau. The first they say has been a
Mohammedan for a short time — almost fifteen years; the [other]
two they say are still heathens. These often quarrel, and there is
war between them most of the time.
Neigh- On the Malacca side, beginning at the land of Arcat up to
bouring Jambi, the land is called Menangkabau, although it is more
^M^ang properly the hinterland, and on the other side of the island of
kabau and Sumatra, towards the south, are Priaman, Tico and Panchur.
what land All the gold in the land of Menangkabau goes out through these
^Mmang- Ports, and without doubt the most important part of the whole
kabau. island is here, where the gold is found, whether there is little
or much in the whole island (?). From Arcat to Jambi and from
Priaman to Baros or Panchur, with the three kings of Menang-
kabau, is more properly called the land of Menangkabau.
Places and The chief mine from which the most gold is obtained, and the
sold^tnes largest, is the country through which the river called (j!uen-
land of <^yfygujs flows; and the second, where it is found more in powder,
Menang- is Called Marapdlaguj They say that all the three above-
kabau. mentioned kings can collect from one mine and the other, which
* The two chief mines mentioned by Pires below were situated in a region
where the gold mines of Sumatra are in greater number to-day. This
corresponds better to Pires’ location of Menangkabau (between Arcat, Jambi,
Priaman and Baros). It seems that the three places connected by Pires with
the names of the kings of Menangkabau may be: Sungidaras (0° 12' S. —
100° 20' E.), Bandarpitiak (0° 25' N. — 100° 30' E.) and Banjul (0° 3' S.
— 100° 13' E.).
2 (JuENCYNJGUjs — Besides the volcano Soenggirik (Lat. 1° S.), there is,
well in the hinterland of Menangkabau, a small river, the Si Njnje,a tribu-
tary of the Kampar, which might suggest Pires’ Quengynjgujs.
Marapalaguj — The names of many places in Menangkabau begin with
the word Muara or Mora, which means confluence or mouth of a river.
Combined with other words it designates some place situated at the mouth
of a river, or even the name of a district or region. There is a Muara (Lat. 1°
i' S., Long. 100° 56' E.) at the confluence of a small stream with the river
Palanghi, a tributary of the Indragiri, in the mountainous hinterland of
Menangkabau, westward of the volcano Soenggirik.
SUMATRA
165
is a law of the land, and that no Moor may go to the mines. Only
the heathen lords have the mines and they have the gold and
from there it is distributed to the kings of Menangkabau, and
from the three kings it is distributed to others, and [as for] the
amount of gold which is obtained from the said mines every
year, they say that they get two bahars of gold, and more
according to the Moors.
Those who have already been in the land of Menangkabau say
that there is a sea of fresh water, which must be six leagues
round and two leagues across, and that there are many villages
round it and that they sail on the said sea, and that this sea is
formed of water that comes from a large mountain range, and
that there is good fishing in it and that the fish goes bad a short
time after they have caught it, and that this lake is under the
jurisdiction of all three kings.
According to what they say, it appears correct that the island
of Sumatra is seven hundred leagues round, beginning from the
islands of Gamispola until you get back to them, going round as
we have said, and there is no doubt that it has the said seven
hundred leagues and more^
There are many heathen kings in the island of Sumatra and
many lords in the hinterland, but, as they are not trading people
and known, no mention is made of them. From here onwards
we will speak of the island of Java and Sunda and we will pro-
ceed with the account of them in this order.
It must not be forgotten that this island of Sumatra has so
many inhabitants that large quantities of clothes from the Kling
and Gujaratees are used there, and when things were in the order
they used to be, they all came to Malacca mostly to bring the
merchandise from the whole island and to take the cloth and
other merchandise to their own countries according to the
custom of each.
Sea in the
land of
Menang-
kabau.
Fol. I47r.
Measure
around
the island
of Suma-
tra.
’■ Barbosa (il, 181) and Castanheda (ii, cxi) say that ‘Qamatra is 700 leagues
in circuit as reckoned by the Moors who sail round it on both sides’. No
doubt Pires’ information is from a similar Arab or Malay source. Seven
hundred leagues, i.e. 2,240 miles or 4,144 kilometres, is a surprisingly
accurate reckoning for that time. The circuit of the island is estimated at
2300 miles. Marco Polo had said already that ‘it has a compass of two thousand
miles or more’.
i66
TOME FIRES
[Sundd\
Measure-
ment of
the land
of Sunda.
[java]
Description and account of the prosperous and proud and
rich and chivalrous island of Java and Sunda — what can be
known of them.
The account will begin with the kingdom of Sunda and from
there we will end at Blambangan {Bulambuam), which is the end
of the known lands which have pates, and after we have spoken
about the lords who live on the sea coast, we will then speak of
the great heathen king within the hinterland of Java and of his
chief captain Guste Pate, and we will start by telling what is
known of the kingdom of Sunda.
These are the lands of Java which have pates, lords and
governors, and now as for Sunda.
First the king of ^umda with his great city of Dayo, the town
and lands and port of Bantam, the port of Pontang (Pomdam),
the port of Cheguide, the port of Tamgaram, the port of Calapa,
the port of Chi Manuk (Chemano)', this is Sunda, because the
river of Chi Manuk is the limit of both kingdoms.
Now comes Java and we must speak of the king within the
hinterland.
The land of Cherimon {Cheroboam), the land of Japura, the
land of I.osari (Locarj), the land of Tegal {Teteguall), the land of
Samarang {Camaram), the land of Demak {Demaa), Tidunan
(Tidumar), the land of Japara, the land of Rembang (Ramee), the
land of Tuban (Tobam), the land of Sidayu (Cedayo), the land of
Grisee {Agacij), the land of Surabaya (Curubaya), the land of
Gamda, the land of Blambangan, the land of Pajarakan {Paja-
rucam), the land of Camtd, the land of Panarukan {Panaruncd),
the land of Chamdy, and when this is ended we will speak of
the great island of Madura'.
Some people affirm that the kingdom of Sunda take up half
of the whole island of Java; others, to whom more authority is
attributed, say that the kingdom of Sunda must be a third part
of the island and an eighth more. They say that the island of
Sunda is three hundred leagues round. It ends at the river Chi
I Fires does not keep his promise, because he only speaks of Madura much
later, at the end of the account of all the islands of the Eastern Archipelago.
JAVA
167
Manuk. They say that from the earliest times God divided the
island of Java from that of Sunda and that of Sunda from that of
Java by the said river, which has trees from one end to the other,
and they say the trees on each side lean over to each country with
the branches on the ground, large trees and beautifully tall.
The king of Sunda is a heathen and [so are] all the lords of his Fol. 147V.
kingdom. Sunda is [land of] chivalrous, seafaring warriors — ^ ^
they say more so than the Javanese, taking them all in all. people
are men of goodly figure, swarthy, robust men. The king’s son of Sunda.
inherits the kingdom, and when there is no legitimate son it is by
election of the great ones of the kingdom. It is the custom in
Sunda for the king’s wives and nobles to burn themselves when
he dies; and so when anyone of lower rank dies in his house the
same thing is done, that is, if they wish to do so, not because the
women are persuaded by words to die, only those who want to
do it of their own accord. And those who do not are Beguines^
leading a life apart and people do not marry them. Others marry
three or four times. These few are outcasts in the land.
The land of Sunda has as much as four thousand horses which
come there from Priaman and other islands to be sold. It has up
to forty elephants; these are for the king’s array. The kingdom
of Sunda is justly governed; they are true men. The people of
the sea coast get on well with the merchants in the land. They
are accustomed to trade. These people of Sunda very often come
to Malacca to trade. They bring cargo lancharas, ships of a
hundred and fifty tons. Sunda has up to six junks and many
lancharas of the Sunda kind, with masts like a crane (?), and
steps between each so that they are easy to navigate.
After the king of Sunda, who is called Samg Briamg, and his
viceroy, who is called Cocunam, and after his Bendahara, who is
called Mdcohumj, in the country, there come the lords captains
of cities and places and ports. As in Java the lords are called
* Beguinas, which may be translated as Beguines, does not necessarily mean
women belonging to some religious order or community. In Pires’ time the
word also meant women living in poverty and penance. However, Barros
says: ‘As to the married (Javanese) women, when their husbands die, they
must die with them, as a point of honour; and if they fear to die, then they
must retire as nuns in their convents (the kind that existed in Java).’ iv, i, 12.
See Pires’ description of the ‘ Tapas of ]ava', p. 177.
i68
TOME FIRES
pates-y in the language of Sunda they are called payhou: for
instance, so-and-so payhou of such and such a place, because the
language of Sunda is not that of Java, nor that of Java of Sunda,
although it is only one island which is divided by the river Chi
Manuk. [It is] very narrow in places, but the land is joined and
all one island, and it has the said division which cuts it and runs
through it so that it is in two, but anyone who was in the
country would see this, because in places the branches of the
outermost trees touch each other.
City The city where the king is most of the year is the great city of
The city has well-built houses of palm leaf and wood.
They say that the king’s house has three hundred and thirty
wooden pillars as thick as a wine cask, and five fathoms high,
and beautiful timberwork on the top of the pillars, and a very
well-built house. This city is two days’ journey from the chief
port, which is called Calapa. The king is a great sportsman and
hunter. His country contains stags without number, pigs,
bullocks. They do this most of the time. The king has two chief
wives from his own kingdom and up to a thousand concubines.
The people of Sunda are said to be truthful.
Merchan- It has a certain amount of better pepper than that from
Ikingdom^ Cochin — Up to a thousand bahars a year; it has a great deal of
of Sunda. long pepper; it has enough tamarinds to load a thousand ships;
' Barros says that ‘The principal town of this kingdom (Sunda) is called
Daio, situated a little in the interior’ (iv, i, 12), and it is represented in this
position on Lavanha’s map of Java. L. Homem’s map of 1554 and D.
Homem’s atlas of 1558 have chodaio next after it, and eastward of Sunda
calapa (Batavia); Dourado’s atlases have odaio similarly situated. Crawfurd
says: ‘What place Daio was, if such place existed at all, it is impossible to
conjecture, as no place resembling it occurs in Javanese topography.’
Dictionary, s.v. Sunda. But according to Pires’ account, Daio or Dafo was
situated somewhere about the place where Buitenzorg stands today, twelve
miles westward of which there is a hill called Dahoe (939 metres). Veth
asserts ‘We undoubtedly recognize in (Barros’) Daio the Sundanese word
for city, i.e. dajuh. By it no other city can be meant than Padjadjaran’. Java,
I, 278-9. However, the second map at the end of this volume of Veth’s work
has Dajuh on the very spot where the modern Buitenzorg is situated —
twenty-eight miles due south of Batavia. According to Crawfurd, ‘Pajajaran
is the name of an ancient kingdom of Java, the capital of which was situated
in the Sunda district of Bogor, about forty miles east of Jacatra or Batavia.
The site is indicated by the foundations of a palace, and by a monumental
stone’. Dictionary, s.v. Pajajaran.
JAVA
169
it trades chiefly in male and female slaves who are natives of the
country | as well as others they bring from the Maidive islands, Fol. i48r
because they can get from Sunda to the Maidive islands in six or
seven days. Their chief merchandise is rice. Sunda also has gold
of eight mates^ proof. It has a great many coarse cloths of its own
kind, which also come to Malacca.
There is rice that Sunda can sell, up to ten junkloads a year. Food-
unlimited vegetables, countless meats, pigs, goats, sheep, cows
in large quantities; it has wines; it has fruits; it is as plentiful as
Java; and they often come from Sunda to Java to sell rice and
foodstuffs, and two or three junks come from Malacca to Sunda
every year for slaves, rice, and pepper, and pangajavas come
from Sunda to Malacca every year with the said merchandise,
and take the following back to Sunda:
They buy white sinabaffs, both large and small, synhavas, Merchan-
pachauelezes, halachos, atobalachos (these are white cloths). They
buy Kling cloths, enrolados of large and small ladrilho which are ^^^king-
then marketable, and they buy much. They buy pachak, catechu dom of
and seeds from Cambay. They buy hretangis and clothes from Sunda.
Cambay, turias, tiricandies, caydes^ in quantities. A great deal is
' Mate — A touch or test of gold used in the East.
^ Balachos and atobalachos — In his description of Negapatam, Pedro
Barreto de Resende says that there were in the country ‘Many cloths, printed
as well as white, and of every kind, and cheap; the white ones are called
enrrollados, which are thin like bof etas', ballachos, cotonias of two threads; and
the printed ones, many sorts of tafessiras of cotton thread, sarasas and many
other sorts of them’. Livro do Estado da India, fol. 32ir. See Dalgado, s.v.
Bofeta, Cotonias, Tafecira, Sara9a. Cotonias were ‘some kind of piece goods,
apparently either of silk or mixed silk and cotton’ (Hohson-Jobson, s.v.
Cuttanee), among which were the balachos and atobalachos. Weaving is still
one of the chief industries of Choromandel.
Ladrilho is a Portuguese word meaning ‘tile’, or ‘little square’ or
‘squares’. Enrolados de ladrilho must mean chequered enrolados, or chequered
woollen cloths. See note p. 93. Dalgado records the word Ludrilho, meaning
perhaps a ‘raw or coarse cloth’, mentioned in a document of 1601 referring to
Mozambique. Ludrilho may be a simple corruption of Ladrilho.
Bretangis — Cotton cloths (blue, black or red) formerly exported from
Cambay. Dalgado, s.v. Bertangi.
Turias, tiricandies, caydes — ‘Turundam, said by the weavers to mean “a
kind of cloth for the body”, the name being derived from the Arabic word
turuk “a kind”, and the Persian one undam ‘‘the body”, is a muslin which was
formerly imported, under the name of terendam, into this country’. J. A.
Taylor, A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Cotton Manufacture of
Coinage
of Sunda.
Ports of
Sunda.
Bantam^.
The port
of Pon-
tang
(Pom-
dag) 3 .
170 TOME FIRES
used there and bought for gold. Areca, rosewater and things like
that are bought in Sunda.
For small money, cash from China. They are pierced through
the middle like ceitis, so that they can be threaded in hundreds.
Every thousand is worth five Malacca Calais', for large money
native gold of eight mates proof is current, which is worth three
hundred Calais (which are nine cruzados) the tumdaya} (which is
fifteen drams well weighed).
The kingdom of Sunda has its ports. The first is the port of
Bantam. Junks anchor in this port. It is [a] trading [port]. There
is a good city on the river. The city has a captain, a very impor-
tant person. This port trades with the Maidive islands and with
the island of Sumatra on the Panchur side. This port is almost
the most important of all; a river empties there by the sea. It has
a great deal of rice and foodstuffs and pepper.
The second port in the said kingdom of Sunda, going towards
Japara, is Pontang, which is already a lesser port than Bantam.
It has a great town. The people who trade with the ports
mentioned above trade in this port. This port is on a river on the
sea. They say that junks anchor there and that it is a trading
port. It has rice, foodstuffs and pepper.
Dacca, in Bengal, p. 46. London, 1851. Apud Yule, Hobson-Jobson, s.v.
Piece-goods (Terindams). Tiricamdis may correspond to the ‘tucamdya
nylora, which are green and red cloths ornamented with painted birds’, and
Caydes may correspond to the ‘candya azares, which are thick cloths from
Khorasans (Corafones)’, of the Lembranfa de Cousas da India em 1525, p. 49.
* When referring to the currency minted by order of Albuquerque in
Malacca, the Comentdrios say: ‘the opinion which found favour with everyone
was that the gold coin should weigh a quarter of a tundia, which is worth
among us a thousand reis'. (in, xxxii). As at that time the cruzado was worth
400 reis, the value of 9 cruzados, or 3,600 reis, mentioned by Pires’ is not far
from the 4,000 reis of the Comentdrios. Farther on, Pires refers to ‘The Java
tundaia or tael’.
^ Barros mentions Bantam, and Lavanha, editor of the first edition of
the Fourth Decada, gives some particulars in a marginal note about this port
and town which he calls both Bantd and Banta. (iv, 8, xii). In Livro de Mari-
nharia, p. 251, it is called Sumdabata and Sumdabamta. It appears distinctly
for the first time as banta on L. Homem’s map of 1554.
3 The eastern extremity of Bantam bay is formed by the delta of the Pon-
tang River, and a few miles inland there is the village of Pontang. Though
well known to the Portuguese and mentioned by Barros as Pondang (iv, i,
12), it appears for the first time on Lavanha’s map, as Pondang, and on
Berthelot’s map as Pontan.
JAVA
171
The third, going in the direction mentioned, is the port of
Chegujde. This port also has a town and a good one. Those we
have mentioned trade there, and Priaman, Andalas, Tulang
Bawang, Sekampung and other places. Junks anchor there. It
has an important captain. It has rice, vegetables, pepper, many
The port
0/ Che-
gujde'.
foodstuffs.
The fourth port is that of Tamgara. It is a port like the above. The port
It has a goodly town and trade. It has a captain. It is a trading
place like all the above mentioned. It has the things the other
have.
' In his enumeration of the Sunda ports Barros places Cheguide between
Tangaram and Pondang. iv, i, 12. Crawfurd says that Barros’ Cheguide is
‘probably meant for Chitarum, “indigo or blue river”.’ Dictionary, p. 422.
But the Chitarum River debouches at the eastern end of Batavia Bay, and
according to Fires’ enumeration Cheguide was situated much more to the
west, before Calapa (Batavia), as it also appears on Lavanha’s map. The old
Portuguese rutter from Malacca to Sunda says, very accurately, that ‘sailing
from Pomta de Charnao (Tanjong Pontang) eight leagues (twenty-five and a
half miles) due east you will find an island (Middelberg), and I will not
mention the many more, farther out to sea; . . . two or three leagues east-south-
east you will see other islands, and proceeding towards the land you will see
a point (Tanjong Pasir or Untung Java) made by the land of Java, and on it
a very long bank, and you will continue along it. At this point a river comes
out into the sea, and there Francisco de Sa erected a padrdo (see note on
Calapa, below) for the king of Portugal on 30 June 1527, and he gave to this
river, where he put this padrdo, the name of rio de Sd Jorge, and the negroes
call it Qidigy’. Then, three leagues beyond a small island, is the port of Sunda-
calapa. Livro de Marinharia, pp. 251-2. This river Qidigy, or the Chi Sadane
— ‘the only river (between Tanjong Kait and Tanjong Pasir) of any import-
ance, which enters the sea by five months’, according to the Admiralty Pilot
— must be Pires’ Cheguide. One of the main branches of the Chi Sadane, the
Muli River, debouches by two mouths exactly where the bank lies which is
referred to in the rutter.
* There are two places between Pontang and Batavia that may correspond
to Pires’ Tamgaram or Tamgara: the village Tangora, on the coast, six miles
eastward of Pontang, and Tanara, a place situated one mile inland, on the
Chi Durian, a couple of miles further eastwards. The best anchorage is off
Tanara, in from two to four fathoms. If one of these places corresponds to
Pires’ Tamgaram, it should have been mentioned before Cheguide. Or Tam-
garam may correspond to Tangerang, an important place eastward of Batavia,
eight miles inland on the Chi Sadane, and connected with it by a branch of
the Chi Angk6, which debouches between Cheguide and Calapa. To com-
plicate the problem still more, there is a village called Muara Tangerang, one
mile inland from the mouths of the Muli River, the branch of the Chi Sadane
at the mouth of which was Cheguide.
TOM^ PIRES
Fol. 148V.
The port
of
Calapa*.
172
The port of Calapa is a magnificent port. It is the most
important and best of all. This is where the trade is greatest and
whither they all sail from Sumatra, and Palembang, Laue,
Tamjompura, Malacca, Macassar, Java and Madura and many
other places. These nations trade also in the other ports. This
* Calapa corresponds to modern Batavia. The map of c. 1540 has the
following names on the north-west of Java, reading from east to west: aguada
dalaim, Calupu, aguada do padra, Cumda; L. Homem’s map of iSS 4 has
aguada de sigide, chodaio, Sunda calapa\ similarly in Diogo Homem’s and
Vaz Dourado’s atlases. On Berthelot’s map of 1635 the place is already called
Batavia. When he enumerates ‘the six most remarkable ports of Java’,
Barros does not mention Calapa-, in its place he puts ‘ Xacatara, also called
Caravam'. iv, i, 12. Xacatara is Jacatra or Jakatra, once the main city of the
Hindu- Javanese Empire of Pajajaram; Caravam is by Crawfurd identified as
‘Krawang, a different place’, namely the carnao mentioned in Livro de Mari-
nharia, p. 252. But Barros in the next chapter refers twice to Calapa, without
again mentioning Xacatara or Caravam. In the old rutter, reference is made
to ‘a port called Sumdacalapa and it has a river’, the situation of which
corresponds to Batavia. Loc. cit. In A brief Description of a Voyage performed
by certain Hollanders to & from the East-Indies, with their Adventures and
Success {1595—7)) there is the following statement: ‘The chief haven in the
island (Java Major) is called Sunda Calapa’, and farther on ‘ . . . Icatra, a town
about 10 leagues from Bantam’, ‘. . .Icatra (Jacatra), which is only remark-
able for its river, and the country about it very fertile in fruits and pro-
visions. In time past it was called Sunda Calapa, which had been a rich town
of merchandise, but upon some occasions, and by reason of this hard usage,
the merchants had withdrawn themselves from thence; therefore at this
present there is little or nothing to do’. A Collection of Voyages and Travels,
II, 404-13, London 1745. According to Crawfurd {Dictionary, p. 44) the site
of the old town is that of the old native capital, Sund-Kalapa, or ‘Sunda of
the coco-palms’, called in the polite language, from the Sanskrit, Joyakarta,
popularly Jacatra, meaning ‘work of victory’. The Encyclopcedie van Neder-
landsch-Indie says that ‘the conservative Chinese always mention Batavia as
Kalapa, thus keeping the tradition of their forerunners who settled there in
the sixteenth century or earlier’, s.v. Soenda Kalapa. In 1522 the Captain of
Malacca, Jorge de Albuquerque, sent a ship under the command of Henrique
Leme to a port of Sunda, with a present for the local king and offers of friend-
ship; a treaty was signed on August 21st, and the Portuguese were authorized
to build a fortress there, and a padrao or pillar was set up on the site chosen
for the fortress building. From here certainly comes the aguada do padra
(watering-place of the padrao) on the c. 1540 map; the fact that it is inscribed
between the words Cumda and Calupu shows simply a confusion on the part
of the c. 1 540 or an earlier cartographer, who may have used more than one
different original, giving three place-names to what is in fact one and the
same place — Calapa. The agoada dejoham lopes dalluim, on Rodrigues’ map
(fol. 30), is the aguada dalaim of the c. 1540 map and aguada de sigide of the
other maps, corresponding to Tanjong Sentigi. See Appendix II. Chodaio,
next to Sunda calapa, is perhaps a mispelling for Ho Daio (The Daio).
JAVA
173
port is two days’ journey from the city of Dayo where the king is
always in residence, so that this is the one to be considered the
most important. It is almost joined to the land of Java, except
that Chi Manuk is between them, and from Chi Manuk here
takes a day and a night with a favourable wind. The merchandise
from the whole kingdom comes here to this port. This port is well
governed; it has judges, justices, clerks. They say that [it is] already
[laid down] in writing [that] whoever does so and so will get so
and so by the law of the kingdom. Many junks anchor in this port.
The port of Chi Manuk is the sixth port. This is not a port in
which junks can anchor, but only at the harbour bar, so they The port
say; others say ‘yes’. Many Moors live here. The captain is a
heathen. It belongs to the king of Sunda. The end of the king- (Che-
dom is here. Chi Manuk has good trade. Java also trades with it. mano).
It has a good large town.
These lords captains of these ports are very important people.
Each of them is much feared and greatly reverenced by the
dwellers in the said places. They are great hunters. They spend
most of their time in pleasure. They have well caparisoned
horses. They vie greatly with the Javanese, and the Javanese
with them. They say that the people of Sunda are more valiant
than those of Java. These are good men and true, and the
Javanese are diabolic, and daring in treacheries and they are
proud of the boast of being Javanese.
The people of Sunda and Java are neither friends nor enemies.
They keep themselves to themselves. They trade with one an-
other, and also if they meet on the sea as pirates, whoever is
better prepared attacks, and so they use here, however great the
friendship or relationship between them.
The kingdom of Sunda does not allow Moors in it, except for
a few, because it is feared that with their cunning they may do
there what has been done in Java; because the Moors are cun-
ning and they make themselves masters of countries by cunning,
because apparently they have no power. The kingdom of Sunda
is ended. Now we will enter into the kingdom of Java and what I
have observed of it will be told.
Island of Java all round, beginning at Cherimon (Chorohoam) [java.l
up to Blambangan {Bulamhaum)\ and first we will speak of the
174 TOME FIRES
heathen king of the interior and of his chief captain Guste Pate,
and afterwards of the Moorish of the sea-coast in order.
They say that the island of Java used to rule as far as the
Moluccas (Maluco) on the eastern side and [over] a great part
of the west; and that it had almost all the island of Sumatra under
its dominion and all the islands known to the Javanese, and that
it had all this for a long time past until about a hundred years
ago, when its power began to diminish until it came to its present
state, as will be described below.
It is because of this power and great worth that Java had, and
because it navigated to many places and very far away — for they
affirm that it navigated to Aden and that its chief trade was in
Bonuaquelim, Bengal and Base — that it had the whole | of the trade
Fol. i49r. at that time. All the navigators were heathens, so that it thus
gathered together such great merchants with so much trade
along its sea coasts, that nowhere else so large and so rich
was known. Some of them were Chinese, some Arabs, Parsees,
Gujaratees, Belgalees and of many other nationalities, and they
flourished so greatly that Mohammed and his followers deter-
mined to introduce their doctrines in the sea-coasts of Java [to-
gether] with merchandise.
The island of Java is a large country, four hundred leagues
Land of round, beginning at Chi Manuk and going along the Blam-
Java. bangan side and turning along the other side to the other end.
We will not speak of the sea-coast now, but only of the hinter-
land. It is well shaded country, not marshy but of the same type
as Portugal, and very healthy.
The king of Java is a heathen; he is called Batara VojyayaK
These kings of Java have a fantastic idea: they say that their
nobility has no equal. The Javanese heathen lords are tall and
handsome; they are lavishly adorned about their person, and
have richly caparisoned horses. They use krises, swords, and
lances of many kinds, all inlaid with gold. They are great hunters
* Batara Vojyaya, or Batara Vigiaja as spelt farther on, corresponds to
Batara Browijaya. Browijaya was one of the titles assumed by the sovereigns
of Majapahit, the last Hindu kingdom of Java before the advent of Moham-
medanism in the island. At the end of the thirteenth century the Browijaya
assumed also the title of Batara, from the Sanskrit Avatara, the incarnation.
Raffles, The History of Java, i, 299, II, 148, 151; Campbell, Jaua, p. 63.
JAVA
175
and horsemen — stirrups all inlaid with gold, inlaid saddles, such
as are not to be found anywhere else in the world. The Javanese
lords are so noble and exalted that there is certainly no nation to
compare with them over a wide area in these parts. They have
their head shorn — half tonsured — as a mark of beauty, and they
always run their hands over their hair from the forehead up-
wards and not as we do, and they are verj' proud of this.
The lords of Java are revered like gods, with great respect and
deep reverence. The land of Java is thickly peopled in the
interior, with many cities, and very large ones, including the
great city of Dayo where the king is in residence and where his
court is. They say that the people who frequent the court are with-
out number. The kings do not show themselves to the people
except once or twice in the year. They stay in their palace, like the
kings of Cochin in the cave (?), and there they are with all
the pleasures and with feasts, with great quantities of wives and
concubines. They say that the king of Java has a thousand eunuchs
to wait on these women, and these eunuchs are dressed like
women and wear their hair dressed in the form of diadems.
And because the Javanese, trusting in themselves and given to
this life, have lost a great part of their lands, the kings do not
command, nor are they taken into account, but only the viceroy
and chief captain, which each of them has; and the one who is
ruling now in Java is Guste Pate^, his viceroy and his chief
captain. This man is known and honoured like the [real] king.
All the lords of Java obey him. Him they honour. This governor
commands in every thing; he holds the king of Java in his hands;
he orders him to be given food. The king has no voice in any
thing, nor is he of any importance. Do not make a gesture
towards a Javanese from the navel upwards, nor make as if to
touch its head; they kill for this.
The viceroy of Java, and its chief captain, is called Guste Pate. Guste
He was formerly called Pate Amdura^. It is he and no one else
* Guste was an honorary title given to a high personage, such as a regent or
prince of the blood.
2 This is the more likel3' translation, but it might equally be: ‘The former
one was called Pate Andura’. Dames thought that ‘probably Pate Udora (or
Pateudra) is identical with Pate Unur.’ II, 191. But Pires’ account shows
that Pate Andtira, Udra, or Udura and Pate Unus are different persons.
TOME FIRES
who rules all Java in the places and lands of the heathens. Giiste
Pate is the father-in-law of the king of Java. This Guste Pate is a
knightly man; he is always fighting in wars. He is always at war
with the Moors on the sea-coast, especially with the lord of
Demak. When he goes to war they say he will take two hundred
thousand fighting men, two thousand of whom will be horsemen
and four thousand musketeers. The king of Tuban told me this,
and as they are great friends and the king of Tuban is his vassal,
he may exaggerate his power. The Javanese are hunters; they
have many fine hounds with collars and rings of gold and
silver.
The Javanese are men who, if they write once and do not get a
reply, do not write again, although it may be of great importance
to them, and this in embassies and things like that. The Javanese
are daring men and determined to die. They are gamblers and
play for high stakes in their way, and so much that sometimes
they stake their children.
There are among the nations no men who are amocos like
those in the Javanese nation, Amocos means men who are
determined to die (to run amuck). Some of them do it when
they are drunk, and these are the common people; but the
noblemen are much in the habit of challenging each other to
duels, and they kill each other over their quarrels; and this is
the custom of the country. Some of them kill themselves on
horseback, and some of them on foot, according to what they
have decided.
It is a custom of Java, and of the countries which we shall
describe later, that when the king dies, many of his chief wives
and concubines burn themselves alive, and some of the king’s
people; and this is also done when the lords die, and any other
important man. This is among the heathens and not among
the Javanese who are Moors. And the women who do not
burn themselves, drown themselves of their own free will
with music and feasting. And when their husbands die, the
most important women and men, when they are nobles, die
by the kris, and so do the noblemen who want to die with the
king. The common people drown themselves in the sea, or burn
themselves.
java 177
Tapas means observants, like Beguines. There are about fifty Tapasof
thousand of these in Java. There are three or four orders
them. Some of them do not eat rice nor drink wine; they are all
virgins, they do not know women. They wear a certain head-
dress which is a full yard long and the end of which turns over
like a crosier, and where it fits on to the head it has five white
stars; and this contrivance is like the material of a black horse-
hair sieve. And these men are also worshipped by the Moors,
and they believe in them greatly; they give them alms; they
rejoice when such men come to their houses. They do not eat
in anyone’s house, but out of doors. They go two and two by
law, and in threes, and they do not go about alone. People do not
touch these mitres of theirs; they say they are sacred. I have
sometimes seen ten or twelve of these in Java.
Many Javanese women do not marry and [remain] virgins. Custom of
They have houses in the mountains and there they end their those of
lives. Others become Beguines after they have lost their first «6ser-
husband — those who do not want to burn themselves. And th&y Javanese
say that there are a large number of these in Java, that there tvomen
must be more than a hundred thousand women; and afterwards
they live in chastity, and they die in this, and they have houses
in places for such retreat; and so the women, like the men, ask
for food for the love of God.
The land of Java is [a land] of mummers and masks of various Javanese
kinds, and both men and women do thus. They have entertain-
ments of dancing and stories; they mime; they wear mummers’
dresses and all their clothes. They are certainly graceful; they
have music of bells — the sound of all of them playing together is
like an organ. These mummers show a thousand graces like
these by day and night. At night they make shadows of various
shapes, like beneditos^ in Portugal.
The Javanese have state oxen as sleek as genets, with carved Oxen in
horns and hoofs; and they have two of these in a cart and on top
of the cart are beautifully constructed cabins of ivory and other
woods, and there they drive when they want to. The oxen are
* This word is perhaps related to the sambenito or sanbenito {saccus bene-
dictus), formerly worn by penitents. It is possible that the tdpih, or petticoat,
worn by the graceful Javanese dancers, suggested the comparison to Pires.
H.C.S. I.
M
178
TOM^ FIRES
Fol. i5or.
Javanese
eunuchs.
Custom of
the king
of Java
when he
goes out
with his
women
to amuse
himself.
trained exactly like horses, and they go along with their horns
facing the teatro^ and the carts go backwards (?); and this is a
fair fashion and it looks very graceful, and it is a stately thing.
And all the merchandise is carried all over the island of Java in
ox carts.
They have a great many eunuchs in Java. They go about
dressed in women’s clothes; they wear their hair on top of the
middle of their heads like a diadem. They serve as guards for
the women, because the Javanese are very jealous men, and no
one sees their women, except among the common people. But
every nobleman, knight and rich man is careful that his women
shall be seen by no one, and they are more ready to die about
this than about anything else. The land is so much accustomed
to this that they do not fail in any point of this custom and they
keep it entirely.
When the king is to go out, a proclamation is made in the city
that the king is going merrymaking or hunting. No noblemen, of
whatsoever estate and condition, leaves his home, nor any
important man. The king goes out with two or three thousand
men with lances in sockets of gold and silver. These go in front;
then his concubines in carts, and very wantonly displayed (?)
and very well dressed; and then his wives on elephants orna-
mented as with vairs, and each of the concubines and wives is
followed by thirty women on foot, each according to her rank.
And behind comes the king wandering along with his Guste
Pate, and they take hounds and greyhounds, and other [men]
bearing three-pronged hunting spears beautifully inlaid. Any
one found in a street through which the king goes or is to go,
dies for it whoever he may be, unless it be a woman or a boy
under ten years of age.
The lords of Java — those who are lords in their own lands —
go out in the same way, [the people being] under pain of death.
The day he goes hunting he is no less respected in his land than
the king in his; so they kill as if they were kings. This is the
custom in Java. I heard of this in exactly the same way in Tuban,
not only of the lord of Tuban, but this state is also kept up by
* Though the use of the word teatro in this case is not easy to explain, it is
possible that Fires meant by it the decorated body of the cart.
JAVA 179
his son-in-law who will inherit Tuban on his death; and I saw
this also in Sidayu.
Every man in Java, whether he is rich or poor, must have a Law of
kris in his house, and a lance, and a shield — they are not 2H\Java <:on~
round wooden shields. And no man between the ages of twelve
and eighty may go out of doors without a kris in his belt. They Hants.
carry them at the back, as daggers used to be in Portugal, be-
cause arms are cheap in Java, and this is the custom of the
country.
The pates are bowed to by their countrymen as in worship Courtesies
with hands above the head. And they put their right hands on ^^Java.
each other’s chests, and when they speak they cross their hands;
and this [this is done by] the common people with the lords, and
they speak at a distance about four or five paces and more often
through a third person; because this is the polite custom to speak
to lords through a third person when they are accompanied. I
did not see the courtesies in the interior of the island of Java at
the king’s court. I saw them on the sea coast in the Moors’
country. These Moorish pates, as will be told later, are great
lords, and when they speak of courtesy and civility they say
that there is every thing at court, and riches. And they speak of
Guste Pate's affairs with great respect.
They say that the Javanese used to have affinity with the
Chinese, and one king of China sent one of his daughters to
Java to marry Bator a Raja Quda, and that he sent her to Java
with many people of China, and that he then sent money in the
cash which are now currency, and they say that there was a
junkload of them, and that that king was a vassal, not a tribu-
tary, of the king of China and that the Javanese killed all the
Chinese in Java by treachery. Others say that it was not so, but
that one king was never related to or knew the other, and that
the Java cash were brought to Java for merchandise, because the
Chinese used to trade in Java long before Malacca existed. But
now they have not been there for the last hundred years. Pol. 150V.
The ports subject to the said king are three: one belongs to the Ports
Moors and the other to the heathens, and the third to a son of subject to
Gmte Pate, viz., Tuban which belongs to Daria Tima de Raja,
a moor who is a vassal of the said king; and another is Blam- his Guste.
Merchan-
dise of
Java, and
food-
stuffs.
Merchan-
dise which
is of
value in
Java and
which
goes from
Malacca.
l8o TOM^: PIRES
bangan which belongs to Pate Pimtor\ and the other is Gamda
which belongs to Guste Patels son.
The land of Java has only heathen [merchandise]: infinite
quantities of rice of four or five kinds, and very white, better
than that anywhere else; it has oxen, cows, sheep, goats, buffaloes
without number, pigs certainly — the whole island is full [of
them]. It has many deer of great size, many fruits, much fish
along the sea coast. It is a land with beautiful air, it has very
good water; it has high mountain ranges, great plains, valleys —
a country like ours. The people are very sleek and splendid,
without blemish, with strong bodies, such as the said country
demands. They are not black men, but rather white than black;
and just as we stroke hair downwards they do it in the opposite
way for elegance — this is not very appropriate for this chapter.
Java also has delicious wines of its own kind, and many oils; it
has no butter nor cheese; they do not know how to make it.
Java has a goodly quantity of gold, eight and eight and a half
mates proof; it has many topazes; it has cubeb, up to thirty bahars
a year, and there is none anywhere else; it has long pepper; it has
tamarinds, [enough] to load a thousand ships. There is very
good cassia fistola in the jungles; there is cardamon, not much,
rice, which is the chief merchandise, vegetables, slaves. For
merchandise they have countless Javanese cloths, which they
take to Malacca to sell. There is also a topaz mine in Java. They
have enough copper and fruseleira bells for the needs of these
parts. It is a great merchandise.
All Cambay cloth and whatsoever merchandise comes from
there to Malacca, all are of value in Java; Kling enrolados of large
and small ladrilho, taforio, topitis^, and other kinds of cloths
from Bengal, sinabaffs of all kinds, bleached and unbleached
and of all other kinds; so that note should be taken of the large
number used by so great a people, and all these are supplied
from Malacca, and they get some few by way of Pamchur —
some, but really it is nothing. And there is a good market for
' Taforio — No such word appears to exist in Portuguese. It may stand for
tafecira, an old term for several oriental cloths like chintz, either of silk or
cotton.
Topitis — A coarse cotton cloth from Ceylon. From the Cingalese tupatti.
Spelt topettjs, or topetins, further on.
java i8i
the tails of white oxen and cows that come from Bengal and
Gujarat.
The coins of Java are cash^ from China; a thousand is worth Coins and
twenty-five Calais — of those at a hundred for three cruzados. A zveights
thousand are called a puon, and for a thousand they give you
thirty less, for that is the custom of the country. They take these
thirty as dues for the lord of the place; and all the trade is done
with these [coins]. Java has no coinage of gold or silver. They
like our money very much, particularly the Portuguese money;
they say that the country where such money is made must be
like Java.
The Java tumdaya or tael is a quarter part more than that of
Malacca. A tundaya of gold of eight mates proof is worth twelve
thousand cash, which are worth nine cruzados at the rate of one
thousand three hundred and thirty three and a third per cruzado.
When the gold is taken from Java to Malacca there is a gain of
one in every five.
Every hundred and forty cash weighs one of our arrdteis of
sixteen ounces. A cate contains two hundred and forty Java
cash, because the Java bahar contains two hundred catties and
weighs forty-eight thousand cash; but I bought only by the one
I took with me.
The Java ganta of rice and vegetables is smaller than that of
Malacca — twenty-five ]zy2.gantas make twenty in Malacca^; and
these weights and measures in all the different places will be
dealt with generally in another book. There is hardly any profit
on the merchandise that goes from Malacca to Java; but there
is a good profit on the return.
The chief dues customarily paid in Java on the merchandise Fol. isir.
‘ Nunes refers to the ‘caixas that come from Java, which are of copper,
larger than ceitis, pierced through the middle’. Lyvro dos Pesos, p. 41. Pires
said above, when dealing with the ‘Coinage of Sunda’: ‘For small money,
cash from China. They are pierced through the middle like ceitis’. Farther
on, dealing with the Malacca coinage, he says that 'every hundred cashes
make one calaim and weigh barely 33 ounces’, the calaim being worth 12 reis.
2 According to Nunes the Malacca ganta was equal to 5 Portuguese
quartilhos (1.75 litres), and the Moluccas ganta was bigger, equal to 5J
quartilhos (1.86 litres). Lyvro dos Pesos, pp. 40, 58. He does not mention the
Java ganta, but following Pires’ information it was equal to 4 quartilhos or a
Canada (1.4 litres). See note p. loi.
TOME PIKES
Dues that
are paid
all over
Java for
voyages,
and pres-
ents from
those who
go there
with mer-
chandise.
How the
Javanese
lords on
the sea
coast
became
Moham-
medans.
182
that goes there by sea are the anchorage dues; and for these a
present is made, and they pay four hundred cash out of
every ten thousand on the merchandise which is sold in the
country.
I have already spoken of the lords of the island. Now I will
begin to tell of the Mohammedan pates who are on the sea coast,
who are powerful in Java and have all the trade because they are
lords of the junks and people.
At the time when there were heathens along the sea coast of
Java, many merchants used to come, Parsees, Arabs, Gujaratees,
Bengalees, Malays and other nationalities, there being many
Moors among them. They began to trade in the country and to
grow rich. They succeeded in way of making mosques, and
mollahs came from outside, so that they came in such growing
numbers that the sons of these said Moors were already Javanese
and rich, for they had been in these parts for about seventy
years. In some places the heathen Javanese lords themselves
turned Mohammedan, and these mollahs and the merchant
Moors took possession of these places. Others had a way of
fortifying the places where they lived, and they took people of
their own who sailed in their junks, and they killed the Javanese
lords and made themselves lords; and in this way they made
themselves masters of the sea coast and took over trade and
power in Java.
These lord pates are not Javanese of long standing in the
country, but they are descended from Chinese, from Parsees and
Kling, and from the nations we have already mentioned. How-
ever, brought up among the bragging Javanese, and still more
on account of the riches they have inherited from their ante-
cessors, these men made themselves more important in Javanese
nobility and state than those of the hinterland; and each of them
is reverenced in his land as though he were something much
greater. We will now begin to tell of each and of his land. Their
lands extend as far as the mountains, which must be seven or
eight leagues.
Because our account carried us straight along the coast of
Sunda through the lands of Java up to Chi Manuk, as we have
said, we will now turn to Cherimon and we will end at Blam-
java 183
bangan, telling who is the Mohammedan in each and what junks
and people it has; and first we will speak of Cherimon.
The land of Cherimon is next to Sunda; its lord is called Lehe Cherimon
Ufa. He is a vassal of Pate Rodim, lord of Demak. This Cheri-
mon has a good port and there must be three or four junks there.
It has a great deal of rice and many foodstuffs; it must have as
many as ten small lancharas — they say that it has not so many
now. This place Cherimon must have up to a thousand inhabi-
tants. Pate Quedir — the one who revolted in Upeh^ — lives in
this place Cherimon. There must be five or six merchants in
Cherimon as great as Pate Quedir, but they all and the lord of
Cherimon do honour to Pate Quedir, because they hold him to be
a bold merchant and a knight. About forty years ago this place
Cherimon was heathen, and the lord of Demak at that time had
a slave from Grisee, and he made the said slave a captain against
Cherimon, and the lord of Demak gave him the title of pate of
Cherimon, and this his slave from Grisee who was lord of Cheri-
mon is grandfather of this Pate Rodim who is lord of Demak
todays.
This place Cherimon is about three leagues up the river;
junks can go in there, they say. It is not a strong affair. This
place has better wood for making junks than anywhere else in
Java, although there is not much wood in the whole of Java.
The land of Japura is bounded on one side by Cherimon and Fol. 151V.
on the other by the land of Losari {Locaryy. It is a country with
two thousand inhabitants in villages. It belongs to Pate Rodim, japura.
The pate of Losari is called Pate Codia. This place has up to five
lancharas; it has two junks. This place has a great deal of rice
and wax, honey, foodstuffs. The people of Japura work on the
land, lilitpate of this place is a knight, and a first cousin of Pate
* Pate quedir, or Patih Katir, fought against the Portuguese in Malacca in
1512. He had been appointed by Albuquerque, in succession to Timuta Raja,
as chief of Upe, or Upeh, a Javanese suburb on the bank of the Malacca River,
opposite the tovim of Malacca.
* If Crawfurd is right, this may agree with his opinion that Pate Rodim's
mother was not a princess of Champa, but ‘more probably the Creole
descendant of a man of that nation’. See note, p. 185.
^Japura may correspond to the Chi Sangarung, which debouches at
Tanjong Losari. Three miles inland there is a place called Losari, in a small
district of the same name.
TOMfi PIRES
Land of
Tegal
(Tete-
guall).
Land of
Sania-
rang.
Land of
Demak
(Demaa).
184
Rodim. He obeys the said Pate Rodim, lord of Demak; he is
almost like a captain of his in the said place. This Pate Rodim s
father took this place Japura by cunning, and it has remained in
his hands until today. It has a port, and you go up the river to
the town.
The land of Tegal is bounded on one side by Japura and on
the other by Samarang {Camaram). This place has more rice
than any other place in Java, here along the coast. The pate of
this place is an uncle of Pate Unus\ he obeys the lord of Demak.
It has a port and a river, where they load quantities of rice and
other foodstuffs. This place has one junk, and sometimes it has
nothing. It has small lancharas. They say that the land of Tegal
is a land with four thousand inhabitants. They live in villages,
not many together. The place Tegal must have about one thou-
sand five hundred inhabitants; this place has as many as seven or
eight merchants.
Samarang is joined to Tegal at one end, and at the other to the
land of Demak. The pate of Samarang is called Pate Mamet. He
is father-in-law of Pate Rodim, lord of Demak, and is obedient
to Demak. It has a port, not a very good one. I has rice and food-
stuffs. This place has three junks, and four or five lancharas. It
has about three thousand inhabitants. Now it has not a single
junk; it is a country with no means of sailing, because those it
had were burned in Malacca and it is unable to make others,
according to what everyone says.
The land of Demak is bounded on one side by Samarang and
on the other by the land of Tidunan {Tidand). The land of
Demak is larger than those we have described from Cherimon
up to Demak. Its city has about eight or ten thousand houses,
according to what they say. Pate Rodim is lord of this country.
He is the chxei pate in Java. They make him out to be head of all
the lords of Java who are his friends. Pate Rodim's father was a
knight, a person of great judgement, and Pate Rodim's grand-
father was a man from Grisee. Some say that he was a slave of
the lord of Demak in whose time he happened to go to Demak;
others say that he was a merchant. He is given with more
authority as a slave.
This Pate Rodim is closely related to the lords of Java because
JAVA
185
his father and grandfather have many daughters and they were
all married to the chief pates. He is so powerful that he sub-
jugated all the land of Palembang and of Jambi and the islands
of Monomhy and many other islands over against Tamjompura
and made them all obedient to him. He is greatly respected, this
Pate Rodim. Rice and other foodstuffs come from his lands to
Malacca. His father was a man who could collect together forty
junks from his lands; now he could not collect ten, because this
Pate Rodim was very young, and he must be about thirty now,
and he gave himself over to concubines and his country has
greatly fallen away from what it was before ^
And moreover, all that remained to him was destroyed in
Malacca when Pate Onus, his brother-in-law, came to fight in
the year fifteen hundred and twelve. He has many fighting men;
he must have thirty thousand men in Java, and he must have ten
‘ Pate Rodim, or Raden Patah, is supposed by some to be a grandchild of
Angka Wijaya, Batara Browijaya of Majapahit. His father was Aria Damar,
Prince of Palembang on Sumatra, an illegitimate son of Angka Wijaya. Aria
Damar married a Chinese Princess of Champa, formerly married to his
father, who gave her to him when she was pregnant. Aria Damar and the
Princess of Champa had two sons, Raden Patah, the eldest, and Raden
Hiisen. They were sent later on by their father to the court of their grand-
father the Batara^ in Majapahit. But Raden Patah, when he grew up, refused
to live at Majapahit, and later on founded Demak, and declared war on his
grandfather. The latter sent an army against him under the command of
Raden Husen, but Raden Patah, after being defeated, finished by beating the
army of the Batara, and Majapahit, ‘the great and magnificent capital of
Java, fell in 1475 to become a wilderness’, and the Batara fled. ‘Raden Patah
Adipati Jimbum’ was the first Mohammedan sovereign of Demak, and
reigned from 1477 to 1519, when he died at a great age. Raffles, History of
Java, II, 125 seqq.) CzxnpheW, Java, 78 seqq. Crawfurd, however, dismisses
‘the story of the princess of Champa, and of the birth of Raden Patah’. He
calls her ‘a Chinese, or more probably the Creole descendant of a man of that
nation . . . some humble female, clandestinely withdrawn from Champa, and
procured for the king of Java’s harem’. ‘This woman was repudiated by the
Javanese monarch, when pregnant of Raden Patah, and made over to Ary a
Damar, chief of the Javanese colony of Palembang, in Sumatra, said to have
been Browijoyo’s own son. Raden Husen was a real son of Arya Damar, by
the same mother.’ History of the Indian Archipelago, ii, 310-13; Campbell,
op. cit., p. 129. Much of what Pires says about Pate Rodim conflicts somewhat
with several writings on Javanese history. He says, for instance, that in his
time Pate Rodim was thirty years old, though it seems that he was much
older. Pires wrote according to what he heard, and in spite of possible
inaccuracies his information is none the less valuable on many points.
TOME FIRES
1 86
thousand in Palembang. He is constantly at war with Guste P ate
and with the lord of Tuban. He has lost many people in war, and
he is poor, and he has only five or six pangajavas in Demak and
not a single junk, and if he did not beg Malacca in its mercy to
make him its vassal and protect him, and to give him an outlet
for his merchandise, he would be utterly lost, because as he has
Fol. i 52 r. not done any trade for three or four years | he is greatly ex-
hausted, so that he must of necessity be a tributary to Malacca
for his own salvation, and the people are already leaving his land
for other places because there is no trade in merchandise.
He used to get rid of all the crops from his lands in Malacca;
thus he used to send [them] in his junks and pangajavas, while
merchants from Malacca went to his country in junks, from
which trade he used to have large quantities of merchandise in
his lands, and made a large profit. And because he does not do it
now, he is ruined, and they say that he and Pate Unus spent
more than a hundred thousand cruzados on the armada that
came against Malacca. There is no doubt that he is at the end of
his resources, because that is what they say. He could not live
if he did not rely on Malacca. Large quantities of merchandise
are consumed in his country, from the Gujaratis as well as from
the Kling and from China and Bengal, of which the country is
now in want for the reasons we have mentioned. Demak has a
rich river. Junks cannot enter it except at full tide.
Land of The land of Tidunan is bounded on one side by Demak and
Julunan ^ on the Other by Japara. This pate is called Pate Orob. He is an
’ uncle of Pate Onus — brother to his father. They say that he does
not obey anyone. He is a man of good judgement, by what they
say. He has no junks now; he has two or three pangajavas. He
has a good river; junks cannot get into it. This country has a
great deal of rice and many foodstuffs. The land of Tidunan
must have two or three thousand men, and this [pate\ often
fights with the people of the hinterland, and helps Pate Rodim's
people, because Guste Pate often attacks Demak, Tidunan
(Tidonam) and Japara, and inflicts losses on the people of the
> Tidana or Tidonam. A few miles up the river Serang, which discharges
into the sea seventeen miles north-north-east of Samarang, there is the village
of Tidunan. Ttdutnar, as spelt above (p. i66), must be a transcriber’s mistake.
java
187
country. They say that [Pate Orob] with his advice governs Pate
Unus and Pate Rodim, and they obey him like a parent; but each
of them is more powerful than the said Pate Orob.
We are now in the land of Pate Onus, the knight of whom the Land of
Javanese speak, because they say that he is a great warrior in
Java and very prudent; and this Pate Unus had a great deal of
land in his possession. His grandfather was a working man in
the islands of Laue and he went to Malacca with very little
nobility and less wealth; and he married in Malacca and had the
son who was father to Pate Unus. And in Malacca he went on
making money and traded in Java, and about forty or forty-five
years ago he cunningly killed the pate [of] Japara, which was
weak and nothing much [of a place] with ninety or a hundred
inhabitants; and he also took the land of Tidunan. Afterwards,
and through his cunning, it became such that he peopled it and
it was united (?). He was the most famous lord of Java for his
strength and for his good fellowship among his own people.
The port of Japara is at the foot of a great and very high
mountain called [Muria]^ The land of Japara is bounded on one
side by Tidunan and on the other by the land of Rembang
(Rame). Japara has a bay with a beautiful port. In front of the
port are three islands like those of Upeh^, and large ships can
enter into it. Those who sail past Japara can see the whole town.
This is the best port we have described up to now, and in the
best situation. Everyone who wants to go to Java and to the
Moluccas calls there in the land of Japara. It is a land well
shaded. He was such a daring man that he took the island of
* This mountain, the name of which was left blank in the MS, corresponds
to the Muria mountains, about twelve miles from the coast. Their highest
and most conspicuous peak is Sutorengo, 5233 feet (1595 m).
^ About two and a half miles west of the mouth of the Malacca River lies the
islet Upeh, northward of which there are some rocks that emerge at low tide.
One of Eredia’s maps (fol. iiv), showing the country around Malacca, has
this Pulo Vpe and one of the rocks. There are not three islands in front of the
port of Japara. There is the Panjang island, lying by the southern entrance to
Japara road, nearly two miles from the mouth of the Japara River, which
might resemble Pulo Upeh; but there are no other islands. Perhaps Pires
refers to some part of the reef that extends from Kelor far to the northward;
the peninsula of Kelor (projecting from the main shore opposite Panjang) was
formerly an island. Island and reef might have reminded him of Upeh and
the neighbouring rocks.
TOME FIRES
1 88
Banka under his jurisdiction, and that of Tamjompura, and Laue
and other islands, and made his country great. Japara used to
have many junks, and he was nearly as great a lord as the lord of
Demak, though Japara is under Demak, which has more people
and more land. And the son, Pate Unus, wanted to put together
what remained of his father’s wealth and what wealth Pate
Rodim had, and decided to take Malacca from the then king of
Malacca, because he had taken offence because they had not
done honour in Malacca to the captain of a junk of his as he had
hoped. And in the meantime Malacca was captured by the
Governor of India, Afonso de Albuquerque; and when they
heard this, the mollahs and chief people there were said what
enterprise could be more just than to take the city from the
Fol. 152V. Portuguese. And [having made] this decision | they completed
their armada in the space of five years with the help of Palem-
bang and came down on Malacca, about a hundred sail, and the
smallest of the hundred cannot have been less than two hundred
tons burden, and they were received in front of the port of
Malacca, where they did not remain at anchor for more than
about six hours. They anchored at night fall, and at midnight
they went away with the land breeze, and about seven or eight
reached home; the others were burnt and sunk and captured.
About a thousand men were killed, and as many more captured.
And even in his own port of Japara the Pate Unus was not
safe, and said that the Portuguese had treated him gently. And
now he goes hunting. Pate Unus is twenty-five years old. He is
greater than all the Javanese in nobility and presumption. He is
waiting for them to propose peace, certain that they must pro-
pose it as it fits them. Japara now has three junks and two or
three pangajavas. His country has a great deal of rice. In his
country they use what we have already enumerated for Java. He
is married to a sister of Pate Rodim, and he asked the late king of
Malacca for one of his daughters in marriage and sent ambas-
sadors about it.
The port of Japara is at the foot of a very high mountain. And
in this mountain there is a plain three or four leagues in extent,
and Japara is on the edge of a plain on flat ground, not marshy
but very good and well shaded. They say it has beautiful meat
JAVA 189
and much fish. Japara certainly appears to be the key of all Java,
because it lies on the point and is in the middle of all Java,
and it is the same distance from there to Cherimon as to
Grisee. It is a great trading place because it is a port, and they
say that from there the merchants used to scatter to other places,
not to mention Grisee.
The land of Rembang is joined at one end to Japara and at the Land of
other to the land of Cajongam^; and because Cajongam was
destroyed by Giiste Pate it had no more inhabitants; Rembang '
took some of it and so did Tuban, so that we can say that at the
other side it [Rembang] joins the land of Tuban. The pate of
Rembang is called Pate Morob. He is an uncle of Pate Unus,
and Pate Unus is his sister’s son. This country has a great deal of
rice and it has wood for junks and they used to be made there of
old. They say that he has none now, and has about two panga-
javas because he supported Pate Unus in his plan against
Malacca and each of them lost what he put in the armada.
He is at war with the people of the hinterland. They say he is
a man who must have about four thousand men in his country.
They work the land and live on their crops. His country has
large bays; it is well shaded. Pate Rodim has a large slice of the
land of Cajongd in his country. Pate Rodim is a nephew of his
also. Some of this land is jungle and is not cultivated, because
Tuban came down on it and destroyed it, and others do like-
wise. I saw a large piece of this land with great palm groves and
other trees and without inhabitants, because they also fear the
Bugis; they fled when the land of Cajongd was destroyed. The
merchants who have money come and make junks in this land of
Rembang.
The land of Tuban touches the land of Cajongam and Rem- Tuban
bang on one side, as we have said above, and on the other side it (Tubam).
touches Sidayu {(j!edayo) and along the coast it is supported by
Guste Pate, l^h&pate of Tuban is called Pate Vira. As a mark of
honour Guste Pate has now given him the name of Anatimao de
Raja, which is a very honoured name. The town of Tuban has a
series of palissades [within] a crossbow [shot] of the sea; it is
* Possibly Saranjawa, a village at the mouth of a small river, half-way
between Rembang and Tuban.
TOM^ PIRES
190
surrounded by a brick wall, partly of burned and partly of sun-
dried bricks; this must be two spans thick and fifteen high.
Around the walls on the outside there are lakes of water, and on
the land side are large carapeteiros^ and brambles against the
wall, which is pierced with large and small loopholes, and has
high wooden platforms along the wall inside. Tuban is on a plain
Fol. i53r. and I Tuban must have about a thousand inhabitants inside its
walls. Every important person has his bricked enclosure, with
well-made doors, and with his people’s houses inside, according
to what he has. At one large bombard shot from the land you
can anchor in two fathoms and three and four, and at one
berfo^ shot it is about a fathom and a half; and at low tide there
are breakers, and when the tide ebbs it goes back two or three
crossbow shots, and there is fresh water at low tide, and quite
sweet water in springs, and if you put your feet down without
noticing the holes you get stuck in the mud up to your middle.
So this land of Tuban is subject to Guste Pate, and this is the
nearest port to the city of Daha {Dayay where Guste Pate has his
residence; and they have made an agreement that Guste Pate will
help him with ten or twenty thousand men when enemies come
upon Tuban, because all the Moorish pates of Java hate him
because he is friendly with the Cafre. The men of Tuban are
knights — more than any of the other Javanese. No lord of Java
* Carapeteiro is the name given in Portugal to a small thorny tree, the sub-
species Piraster of Pirus communis Linn. Pires was obviously referring to some
native thorny plant which reminded him of the carapeteiro.
^ An ancient short cannon, much smaller than the bombard.
3 Day a, or Daha, as spelt farther on. Though the Encyclopcedia van
Nederlandsch-Indie, s.v., says that Daha, capital of the Hindu Empire of the
same name in Java, was ‘somewhere between Panorogo and Madioen’, which
corresponds to the western side of the Willis mountains, Crawfurd {Diction-
ary, s.v. Daa) asserts that this ancient kingdom of Java corresponds ‘with the
modern province of Kadir’, which is on the eastern side of those mountains.
Campbell is quite positive in identifying Daha with Kediri. {Java, pp. 60-3),
and a map dated December 31st 1889, published by Verbeck, has Djaha, a
place where there are ruins and stone inscriptions, eight miles north-west of
the town of Kediri. Tuban is indeed the nearest port, on the northern coast
of Java, to Kediri, which lies fifty-five miles due south through almost flat
country. Tuban is distant forty-nine miles from Djaha. This agrees also with
what Pires says below, that Daha is distant two days of good going from
Tuban, in a land of waggons and roads. Lavanha’s map has DAIA written
near the coast, between Agaci and Passaruam.
java 191
is friendly with him. Because his town is strong and difficult to
land at, and [because] he is allied with Guste Pate, he fears no
one and he gets the better of them all.
Because he is a kinsman and friend of Guste Pate he has richly
inlaid things in his lands; he has krises, lances of many kinds; he
has three-pronged hunting spears; he has caparisoned (.?)
genets; he has three elephants; he has a thousand hounds and
others [which are] bloodhounds; he has two hundred concu-
bines; he has rich and well-built houses, where he lives. He
rides every morning in waggons with a great deal of wood-work
done in a very beautiful way. He does not come out into the
countryside, as he shuts himself up, except sometimes very late he
rides on elephants and sometimes on horses. He spends three days
in the town and as many more out hunting. The country is well
shaded, with a great deal of rice which come from inland; it has
many kinds of wood, much wine and much fish and good water.
It has many tamarinds, much long pepper; and cubebs is sent
there; [it has] beef, pork and kid and goat flesh, venison,
chickens and countless fruits; the land is plenteous in all these,
and [he] shows himself a great servant of the king our lord. His
people speaks to him from afar, but he embraces us and hopes
that through his truth and good [faith] he will come to be chief
person in Java. He is a man of between fifty-five and sixty. He is
Javanese by birth; his grandfather was a heathen and afterwards
became Mohammedan. This man does not seem to me to be a
very firm believer in Mohammed.
The man who will inherit the land on his death is the son of
one of his sisters and married to one of his duaghters. This man
did not make such a good impression on me as the old lord of
Tuban. You will reach the city of Daha in two days of good
going. [This is a] land of waggons, good [country], well shaded
like our own, not marshy, with roads going through populated
country. There are heathens in the town; they live in a quarter
by themselves. The land is well populated, with important
houses. There are many knights in Tuban. I saw a heathen in
Tuban who came there from the court to see us. They said he
was a nobleman. He had three handsomely caparisoned genets,
with stirrups all inlaid, with cloths all adorned with richly
Land of
Sidayu
(Ceda-
yo)*.
Fol. 1 53V.
Land of
Grisee
(Agacij)*.
192 TOME FIRES
worked gold, with beautiful caparisons; he brought with him
about ten men with rich lances. He was robust, tall, freckled,
with his hair curly on the top and frizzy; and they all did him
obeisance. And he only came to see what sort of men we were,
and he lodged outside the town and did not go out except once
during the day, towards afternoon; and I talked to him many
times. The lord of Tuban often professes that he was the first to
accept and maintain friendship with the Portuguese; and he says
that he does not want his sons to remember him for anything
else. He is a good man and his friendship is faithful, and he is
certainly always deserving of favour. If the whole country is
added together, there must be six or seven thousand fighting
men in Tuban; it has no junks nor c&rgo pangajavas of its own.
The land of Sidayu is joined on one side to the land of Tuban
and on the other to the land of Grisee. The lord of Sidayu is
called Pate Amiza\ he is a nephew of Pate Moroh, the lord of
Rembang, and he is first cousin to Pate Unus and second cousin
to Pate Rodim. He is a youth of twenty years old. He is married
to the daughter of the lord of Grisee. He has with him a brother
of his father’s who is called Pate Bagus. I talked to these people
many times in Sidayu. This Pate Bagus governs the country; the
youth goes hunting with his concubines.
Sidayu is not a trading country. It is smaller than Tuban. The
town there is surrounded by a wall, like Tuban. It is a poor
affair, with few inhabitants. There are important men who live
on their crops. He must be a man with two thousand vassals;
they defend his country. The coast is bad for landing, all stones.
It has rice and foodstuffs; it has no junk nor pangajavas. They
say that the land is good inland. The people of Sidayu are more
rustic than any of those described up to now and the country
is largely heathen. This [lord] is friendly with the lord of Tuban.
We have reached Grisee (Agracij), the great trading port, the
best in all Java, whither the Gujaratees, and [people of] Calicut,
Bengalees, Siamese, Chinese, and [people of] Liu-Kiu (Lequeos),
* Qidaio on one of the maps (fol. 30) and Rio de fidaio in one of the draw-
ings (fol. 99) of Rodrigues.
* Agaci or Agraci corresponds to Grisee or Geresik. Agrafi on Rodrigues’
map (fol. 37) and drawing (fol. 96).
JAVA IQ3
used to sail of old. This is the jewel of Java in trading ports.
This is the royal port where the ships at anchor are safe from
winds, with their bowsprits touching the houses. It is called the
merchants’ port; among the Javanese it is called the rich people’s
port. Grisee is bounded by Sidayu, and on the other side by
Surabaya (Curubaya), and it has the large island of Madura
facing it, within sight.
The sea beats against Grisee (Agraci), and it has two towns
which are separated by a little river, which is almost dry at low
tide. Pate Cuguf is lord of the larger of the towns with the
greater number of inhabitants; and Zeynall of the other port.
These two are constantly at war; and they do not go from one
part to the other or from the other to the other on pain of death;
and sometimes they make truces — at the time of their harvest,
or when junks come to the port; and afterwards they go back to
their enmity. This has been going on for a long time. Zeynall sets
himself up as a knight; the other has more men. Each defends
himself against the other, and they live like this with sentinels.
Pate Cuguf is Malayan by birth. Pate Cuguf's grandfather is
called \blank\ and his son (the father of Pate Cufuf) is called
Pate Adem. This Pate Adem came and settled in Malacca; he
had his houses in Malacca and traded in merchandise. In
Malacca he married a Malayan woman, by whom he had Pate
Cugufy and the said Pate Cuguf lived in Malacca for a long time.
On the death of the grandfather, Pate Adem went to Grisee to
take possession of his land, and a long time afterwards he sent
from there to Malacca to summon his son, who went there with
all his household. On the death of the father, who was called
Pate Adem, the said Pate Cuguf stayed in Grisee. This man used
to have the trade with the Moluccas and Banda (Bandam) as long
as he had junks. This Pate Cugufs grandmother was a sister of
Sri Nara Diraja {Cerina de Raja), the father of the Bendahara
whom the king ordered to be beheaded here; and the late king
of Malacca was also a grandson of this Bendahara, father of the
one they killed, so that Pate Cugufis a second cousin german to
the late king of Malacca ^
* The history of Malacca before the arrival of the Portuguese is a compli-
cated affair. As far as I was able to ascertain, a sister of the Bendahara Tuan
H.C.S. I.
N
194 TOM^ PIRES
This Pate Cufuf is a merchant and much given to trading in
merchandise. He has many merchants in his country. He is a
man of good judgement. He must be about fifty years old. There
used to be many junks and many cargo pangajavas in his port;
now there are none. He has many calaluzes and namotes^ for
raids, as have the other pates of Java, all of whom have a large
number of calaluzes, but they are not fit to go out of the shelter
of the land. They are carved in a thousand and one ways, with
figures of serpents, and gilt; they are ornamental. Each of them
has many of these, and they are very much painted, and they
certainly look well and are made in a very elegant way, and they
are for kings to amuse themselves in, away from the common
people. They are rowed with paddles. They ought to be used in
Portugal, in state. The land of Grisee contains about six or
seven thousand men.
Many cloths of all kinds are disposed of in Grisee, and in
large quantities. They are sold to most of Java and to many
other islands. And because he used to own the shipping to the
Moluccas and Banda, he and his merchants used to buy large
quantities, and great trade was done in Grisee. And through the
destruction of Malacca they do not navigate, nor do they trade,
AH Sri Nara Diraja was mother of Raja Kasim, who was the fifth king of
Malacca, with the title Muzaffar Shah. Tuan Ali Sri Nara Diraja made an
arrangement with his nephew Muzaffar Shah, and married one of the latter’s
wives, Tuan Kundu, who was divorced for the purpose. From this marriage
two children were born — Tuan Senaja, afterwards wife of Alauddin (son of
Mansur Shah, the sixth king, who was son of Muzaffar), the seventh king of
Malacca, and Tuan Mutahir, the Bendahara slain in 1510 by his nephew the
Sultan Mahmud (eighth king of Malacca, and son of Tuan Senaja). Cf. Win-
stedt, A History of Malay, pp. 44 seqq. But perhaps the grandmother of Pate
Cufuf was another sister of Sri Nara Diraja, not Muzaffar Shah’s mother;
otherwise Pires would probably mention it, and the relationship would be
much more complicated. In any case, Pate Cufuf, being a grand-son of a
sister of Tuan Ali Sri Nara Diraja, was second cousin german of the king
Mahmud of Malacca. The Malay Annals refer to the visits of this ‘Javanese
noble Pateh Adam’ to Malacca, and his adventurous marriage to Tuna Manda,
an adopted daughter of the Dato Sri Nara Diraja, who was a brother of
Tuan Mutahir. Wilkinson, The Malacca Sultanate, pp. 60 and 50. So Pires
is right once more, though the mother of Pate Cupuf was only the adopted
daughter of Dato Sri Nara Diraja.
^ Calaluz — A kind of swift rowing vessel used in the Indian Archipelago.
Naviote — This word, unknown in Portuguese today, must be the same as
naveta, an antiquated word meaning a small ship or craft.
java
195
nor have they any junks, because most of the Javanese junks
come from Pegu, where the Javanese — and other people who
bought in Malacca — used to send for them to be made; because
the Pegu people bring the merchandise and the junks all as
merchandise, and having sold | the merchandise they used to Fol. i54r.
sell the junks. And because it is already five years since this
stopped, and the Governor of India burned and defeated
all the enemy junks, they were all left without any, and they
have no junks.
And so Java is alone and without junks in the way that has
been described, and the lords who used to have junks before
their defeat have none now, and those they were able to muster
were taken by Pate Unus, and when he was routed he only
brought three back, so that the whole of Java and Palembang
has not as many as ten junks and ten cargo pangajavas, which
are like ships. Java is more for calaluzes and small pangajavas
than for large junks, because Pegu used to supply them all
with junks — Pedir, Pase, Pahang and Java and Palembang.
Most of them are from Pegu. Some are made in Java, but
they are few, and most of these purchases were made in
Malacca. The Javanese are not capable of making ten junks in
ten years,
I have already talked about Pate Cupuf, the lord of the chief
town of Grisee. There now remains [to tell of] Pate Zeinall;
and because his land lives for the most part on its own crops
[and has no trade], and they fight in the interior of the island
with his enemies, there is nothing worth spending time on,
because he has nothing on the sea; on land he defends him-
self against his neighbours. The Javanese say that this Pate
Zeinall is a knight and the oldest of all the pates in Java. He
has many relations: he is an uncle of Pate Amiza of Sidayu,
and of Pate Unus, and the brother-in-arms of the old Pate
Rodim, and now he is the same thing to Pate Rodim the son.
He is full of fancies, and poor. He says that should the
Captain-Major [Afonso de Albuquerque] make peace with the
lord of Demak, the lords of Java would almost be forced to
make it also, saying that the lord of Demak stood for the whole
of Java,
196 TOM^ PIRES
Land of The land of Surabaya is bounded on one side by the lands of
Surabaya Qrisee and on the other by the lands of Ganda. The lord of
bak^. Surabaya is called Pate Bubal, and Guste Pate has now given
him the name of Jurupd Galacam Jmteram, which means ‘the
excellent captain’. He is a knight and a person of great authority,
more honoured in affairs of arms than any of those who are now
living along the sea-coast, whether Javanese or Moorish; and all
the Javanese rely on him, on his personality and counsel. He has
a great deal of land and he is often at war with Guste Pate, and
sometimes they are friends. He has many war calaluzes at sea.
He is a brother-in-arms of the lord of Grisee. They say that his
grandfather was a heathen slave of Guste Pate’s grandfather.
Others say that his grandfather was from Sunda. In any case he
is greatly esteemed. He must have about six or seven thousand
fighting men in his country.
He is constantly at war, and he is not given to any other
exercise. All his Javanese neighbours receive counsel and help
from him. He is closely related to the Moorish pates. He is very
much at war with the pate of Blambangan, who is a heathen
enemy of his. The Javanese also send him help when the other
attacks him, because the pates of Blambangan and of Gamda are
more powerful. This \Pate Bubat] is greatly esteemed because
he is always at war. His land has foodstuffs like the other Javan-
ese lands, because all the land of Java has them. The merchan-
dise goes out from Grisee. He very much wants there to be
friendship with Malacca, and they say that he is working hard
for it. He has already written to this fortress, and they have
written him twice. This pate is poor. His land has neither junks
nor pangajavas. They live on their crops, as others do in Java.
Sometimes his captains go plundering on the sea.
Land of land of Gamda is large. It is joined on one side to Sura-
Gamda*. Other to lands of Canjtam, Panarukan {Pana-
' It appears as ssurubaia on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 37) and as Surubaia in
the drawing (fol. 96).
2 As the port of Surabaya is at the mouth of the Kali Mas, the northern-
most branch of the river of Surabaya delta, it may possibly be that Fires’
Gamda was situated at the mouth of the Kali Brantas, the southernmost
branch of the same delta, some twenty miles from the former. Near the mouth
of the Kali Brantas there is a village called Djangan.
JAVA 197
rucam), Pajarakan {Pajurucam). The pate of Gamda is called
Pate Sepetat. He is a heathen, son of the great Guste Pate of
Java. The Moors have reached as far as here and were thrown
out by Guste Pate, who gave these lands to one of his sons. From
here onwards there are no Moors except in the Moluccas, and
those of Banda. His country is very plenteous, with many
warriors, and he is always fighting with Surabaya. They say
that this son of Guste Pate is a knight and important person on
account of his father, and greatly esteemed. He is married to the
daughter of Pate Pijntor, lord of Blambangan, and he is also |
married to the daughter of the great lord of Madura. He has Fol. 154V.
many horsemen, and many lords of Java are with him. He has
calaluzes on the sea.
And with the help of his father-in-law he has prevented the
Moors from passing beyond Surabaya for a longtime. His land has
many foodstuffs; it is not a trading country. They all live in plenty
on their crops, and they all have plenty of delights and pleasures.
There must be ten thousand men in the land of Gamda.
These three lands individually used to have pate lords, and Lands of
very important lords of great authority. It must be about eight
years since they had them, and another five since they were rukan,
destroyed. Canjtam is joined to Ganda, and Canjtam to Pana- Pajar-
rukan, and Panarukan to Pajarakan and Pajarakan to Blam-
bangan. These pates made Pate Pular, lord of Canjtam, their
chief; and they say that, because they worked to allow the lord
of Surabaya to enter in, these three pates were killed and their
lands taken by the lord of Blambangan. And now they have no
^ Canjtam, or Camta and Canjtao, as spelt before. There is a place and a
river Kraton, a few miles south-east of Kali Brantas, near Pasuruan, which
might suggest Canjtam or Camta. As Pires says, all these places were situated
at the mouths of rivers.
Panarucam or Panuruca is Panarukan. It appears for the first time as
panaruca on the map of c. 1 540.
Pajarucam or Pajaruca corresponds to Pajarakan, a small place today,
which the Eastern Archipelago Pilot — ii refers to as Tanjong Pajarakan,
seventeen miles east of Probolonggo and thirty-four miles west of Panarukan.
However, Pires erroneously placed Pajarucam after Panarucam. Padjarakan
is the only place shown between Pasoeroean and Panaroekan, rightly situated
on the eastern side of the bay, on a seventeenth century Schetskaart van
Oost-Java en Madoera, contained in Mac Leod’s Atlas behoorende bij de
Oost-Indische Compagnie, N° V. Pageruca on the map of c. 1 540.
Land of
Blam-
bangan
(Bulam-
buam).
198 TOME FIRES
pates and are under the jurisdiction of Blambangan; and they
say that each of these three countries is almost as important as
each one of those that have been described. As with Sidayu, the
rivers are on the sea-coast. They are countries with many food-
stuffs and they used to have a large population.
The land of Blambangan is bounded on one side by the above
countries of Canjtam, Panarukan, Pajarakan, and on the other
side by Chamda} in the interior, and from there onwards it is all
mountainous country until it reaches the land of the king of
Java, which should in truth more properly be called [the lands]
of Guste Pate. T)\&pate of Blambangan is called Pate Pimtor. He
is a great gentile lord, a fearsome knight, and greatly respected
in Java, especially by the heathen lords. He held all the Moors
so that they could not proceed farther. His country has many
inhabitants, and he also has a large number of small craft on the
sea. There are no more pates after this one. The people are
rustic, like [people] of the mountains, and they obey Guste Pate.
This lord of Blambangan is so exalted, because he has both
the lands of Canjtam and Panarukan, Pajarakan and the lands of
Chande, that they all fear him greatly. He is the son of a sister
of Guste Pate. This is a man who lives well on his crops. He has
many horses in his lands; he alone has more than all the lords of
Java, including Moors. The people of Blambangan are warlike.
The land is rich. It is not necessary to speak of Chande because
it is inland, and he has taken it.
Many male and female slaves come from his lands to be sold
in all Java. He has a multitude of them in his country. When
their lords die they take their wives to the fire; thus they lose
their bodies in this life and their souls burn in the next. And
thus in Gamda, when a lord dies his wives kill themselves, or
burn or drown in the sea, as I have already told.
* Bulambuam corresponds to Blambangan, the south-easternmost point of
Java. Balambuao or ballambuao in Dourado’s atlases.
Chamda, Chandy or Chande, must correspond to Jamber or Djember, a
town and district in Besuki province, the easternmost part of Java. This is
perhaps what Couto called the ‘Kingdom of O Valle' (iv, iii, i), and Lavanha
inscribed on his map as O VALE. It probably refers to the great valley be-
tween the two mountains Hiyang, 10132 feet (3088 m) and Raung, 10932
feet (3332 m), twenty-nine miles to the east.
java 199
T he great island of Java is finished, as well as I have been able
to examine and investigate it, verifying my facts with many
people; and whenever they seemed to me to agree thoroughly,
I have written that down, and they certainly are not out of the
right order ; and there is no doubt that there are more things in
Java, and more important things, than are related, and thus up
to now I had not heard tell how nobility, pride, determination
and daring are in truth found in these parts; the Malays are
haughty indeed, but their haughtiness was learned from the
Javanese. Comparisons ought not to be made, because the
Javanese are haughty and proud by nature, and the others by
accident or art. And if this account is to speak honestly of the
Javanese matrons, it is not a lie that they are so preposterous
that they kill themselves with a kris if anything displeases them,
and they sometimes kill their husbands; and it is a custom in
Java for a woman to be searched before she goes to her husband,
because they carry secret krises. This is the custom among the
nobles.
And that it may be known there is no greater pride than in Java, Fol i55r.
there are two languages, one for the nobles and the other for the
people. They do not differ as the language at court does with us;
but the nobles have one name for things and the people another;
this must certainly be the same for everything.
Where but in Java is it customary for the women of good
birth to have their pomp, their clothes, their golden crowns and
diadems like the Javanese? When they go out they go in state
looking like angels. There is no doubt that in the world there are
[no more] presumptuous women, and for this reason many die
virgins in their houses when they cannot gratify themselves by
marrying great people. For where does this pride spring from, if
it is not natural to the country? For when the women are so pre-
sumptuous, what will be the case with the Javanese men, [so]
prosperous and proud that neither a father nor a mother dare
put a hand on their son’s head in a caress, nor a husband on his
wife’s. A wife can count her husband as the king of the earth.
And those of the pates who are along the sea-coast of Java and
who do not yet feel so noble as those inland — because they were
slaves and merchants a couple of days ago — are so proud that
200
TOME FIRES
all of them are respected as if they were lords of the world.
Each of them goes out hunting or pleasure- seeking in such
exalted style. They spend all their time in pleasures, with
retinues with so many lances in holders of gold and silver, as we
should use iron, so richly inlaid, with so many harriers, grey-
hounds and other dogs; and they have so many pictures painted
with images and hunting scenes. Their cloths are adorned with
gold, their krises, swords, knives, cutlasses are all inlaid with
gold; [they have] numbers of concubines, genets, elephants, oxen
to draw the wagons of gilt and painted woodwork. They go out
in triumphal cars, and if they go by sea [they go] in painted
calaluzes, so clean and ornamental, with so many canopies
that the rowers are not seen by the lord; [there are] beautiful
apartments for his women, other places for the nobles who
accompany him, all certainly in accordance with his whim, [as]
men who cherish their own importance greatly.
[south-eastern islands]
So that our account may proceed in order and without any
interruptions, we will run on to Banda {Bamdam)\ and because
it is our intention to speak of Banda as it is the [most im-
portant] place among the islands between, their account will not
be extensive but brief, as they are not so profitable, to wit, right
next to Java are the islands of Bali {Baly) and of Lombok
(Bombo), the island of Sumbawa {Cimbava), the island of ByrnUy
the island of Sangeang {Foguo), and the islands of Solor (Soloro),
Alor (Malua), Kambing (Lucucamby), Citor, Batojmbey, and
many others that are in this chains
' At the beginning of the sixteenth century there was some information
about Sumatra, Java, the ‘Spice Islands’, and some other far-eastern places,
through the relations of Marco Polo, who called at Sumatra at the end of the
thirteenth century. Friar Odorico, who visited Sumatra, Java, and perhaps
Borneo, a few years later, and some Arab travellers. But this information
was scanty and vague; and still vaguer, if any at all, was that about the chain
of islands which lie eastward of Java. Pires is the first to give definite news
about these islands beyond Java; to some extent it is completed by Rodrigues’
maps and drawings. Barbosa, though writing a little later, is much less well-
informed than Pires. After them come Pedro Reinel’s maps of c. 1517 and
c. 1518, Jorge Reinel’s world map of 1519, Lopo Homem’s atlas of 1519, and
SOUTH-EASTERN ISLANDS
201
The islands of Bali, and Lombok, and Sumbawa. The first
island next to Java is Bali, and the other is Lombok and the
Reinel s map of c. 1 524- Pigafetta’s Primo viaggio intorno al mondo has several
drawings or maps of islands visited by Magellan’s expedition and other
islands of which he obtained information. Almost all these drawings refer to
the voyage after the expedition reached the Philippines until it left Timor,
through the Eastern Archipelago, which gives the drawings special interest
for us. Pigafetta’s original manuscript, written perhaps in 1524, is lost, but
there are four copies extant dating from the first half of the sixteenth century;
one in Italian, in the Ambrosiana, Milan; two in French, in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris, nos. 5650 and 24224; one in French, belonging to the
Phillips Collection, Cheltenham. Then there is a gap in the sources of infor-
mation, which again become available with the map of c. 1540, and later ones.
But the disposition of these numerous islands, sometimes with very irregular
coastlines, like that of north Sumbawa, and the imperfect knowledge that
writers and cartographers had of them, all contributed to the great confusion
in their description and mapping, so that several of them sometimes appear
as a single one, one appears as two or more. To add to the confusion it
happened that contemporary writers and cartographers used different names
for the same place, according to their source of information, or spelt them
differently; and transcribers of original writings, and cartographers repro-
ducing earlier prototypes, often distorted the spelling given to native names,
with the result that some of them became unrecognizable, or their origin
extremely difficult to trace. This happened, for instance, with Pires and
Rodrigues.
Baly, which is recorded on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 36) as Bllaram, appears
as bancha on Reinel’s map of c. 1524, and later as bale on L. Homem’s map
of 1554, and Balle in Dourado’s atlases. The Livro de Marinharia has Bam-
cha and Vamcha, corresponding to Bali (p. 264). On the representation of all
these islands in Rodrigues’ drawings, see Appendix II.
Bombo corresponds to Lombok. It is likely that Pires wrote ‘lombo’ where
the transcriber read bombo. Rodrigues has Lomboquo on his map, but no other
early map records it. In the drawings he calls it amjane\ Galvao has Anjano;
the rutter refers to it as Amjane. Reinel’s map of c. 1524 has amgeane. This
name must correspond to the lofty Mount Rinjani (12350 feet or 3764 m.)
which is the largest volcano in the whole archipelago, right in the middle of
the northern part of the island.
CiMBAVA, Byma and Ilha do Fogo — Pires refers to the island of Sumbawa
as if it was two islands; Cimbava and Byma. It takes its name from the village
of Sumbava, on the north coast of the western part of the island. Bima, on
Bima Bay, is situate on the north coast of the eastern part. Rodrigues’ map
has ssimbaua] Barbosa calls it jlaua menor (Java the Less) and Qindoaba (see
Dames, ii, 194); L. Homem’s atlas of 1519 has also JAVA MINOR IN-
SULA, which Denuce had already identified as Sumbawa (Les Origines,
pp. 120, 134); on one of Eredia’s maps (fol. 28r.) the whole island is called
bima. Among Rodrigues’ drawings there are three of the north coast of the
island, all named Simbaua or Symbaua. Reinel’smap of c. 1524 bima, moio,
and amajam-, L. Homem’s map of 1554 also has aram\ aramardin D. Homem’s
atlas of 1558; arao arao in Dourado’s atlases. These last have also bima.
202
TOME FIRES
Other Sumbawa. All these have kings. Each of them has many
ports and many waters, many foodstuffs, many slaves, male and
female. They are robbers; they have lancharas; they go plunder-
ing; they are all heathen. They bring foodstuffs and cloths of
their kind for merchandise, and many slaves and many horses
which they take to Java to sell.
P. Reinel’s maps of c. 1517 and c. 1518, and J. Reinel’s map of 1519 have
ilha do fogo] the map of c. 1540 has ganuape\ L. Homem’s map of I5S4 arid
D. Homem’s atlas of 1558 have guluape; in the rutter this island is called
Gunapim, and it is accurately situated ‘more or less 12 leagues from Arrd arra\
SOLORO — Pires’ Soloro does not mean only the small island of today, or
even the small group of Solor Islands, but the large island of Flores as well.
The next of Rodrigues’ maps (fol. 37) shows part of a large island which is
also called Solor, having at its eastern end Cabo das frolics. But fourteen of his
drawings are named either Sollote or Solloro. The island that is depicted
next to Sumbawa, on P. Reinel’s maps of c. 1517 and 1518, has cabo da
frroresta, an obvious corruption of cabo de frolics', L. Homem’s atlas of 1519
has CANDIN INS., the old Sandji of El Edrisi (Denuc^, op. cit., p. 120),
corresponding to Flores; Reinel’s map of c. 1524 has c. dofcrro, Solor, and a
cntrada dc solor (the strait); the map of c. 1540 has c. das fl., and eastwards
y. dc solor', L. Homem’s map of 1554 has lucaragc (Nusa Raja) and c. do
ferosil) in the middle of the island; Dourado’s atlases have dosferros, llusartaia
(Nusa Raja), llusatarctc (Rusa Linguette), c: das f roles, all on Flores island,
and south-eastwards, fairly accurately placed, osolor. All this shows once more
how the cartographers, copying from map to map names they did not know,
could disfigure them until they became almost unrecognizable and even
meaningless.
Malua corresponds to Alor or Ombai island. The name still survives in
‘Malua passage’, between Alor and Timor. It appears for the first time on
Torreno’s map of 1522, as malua, and then on the anonymous map of c. 1523
(in Turin), on Mercator’s globe of 1541, and on two maps of the Islario of
Alonso de Santa Cruz (14 and loi, ed. Real Sociedad Geogrdfica, Madrid,
1926), as a result of the information brought by the ship Vitoria of the
Magellan expedition, which arrived in Spain in September 1522. Galvao
called it Mauluoa.
Lucucamby corresponds to Kambing island, northward of Timor, between
Alor and Wetta. It appears as Nossocamba (Ambrosian MS) or Nossocabu
(Paris MS 5650) on Pigafetta’s drawing of Timor, and as lucacambiu on one
of Eredia’s maps (fol. 48V.).
^ITOR — I was unable to discover, from this unrecognisable name, anything
that might suggest what Pires meant for, or the transcriber disfigured as,
gitor.
Batojmbey may correspond to Wetta, Wetar or Wetter island, which on
the map of c. 1540 appears as batubor, and as Batuombor (Ambrosian MS) or
Batuambar (Paris MS 5650) on Pigafetta’s drawings. On other early maps it
is inscribed as terra alta {terra lata on Reinel’s map of c. 1524). Batu means
rock or stone in Java-Malay.
SOUTH-EASTERN ISLANDS 203
The island of Bima, beyond these, is a large island belonging The
to a heathen king. It has many paraos, and many foodstuffs in
great plenty; it has meat, fish; it has many tamarinds; it has a
great deal of brazil, which they take to Malacca to sell, and they ^
go there from Malacca for it because it sells well in China, and
the Bima brazil is very thin. It is worth less in China than that
from Siam, because that from Siam is thicker and better. Bima
also has a large number of slaves and many horses which they
take to Java. This island has trade. They are swarthy people
with straight hair. This island has a number of villages, and also
many people and many woods. People who are going to Banda
and the Moluccas call here, and they buy many cloths here,
which sell well in Banda and the Moluccas. This island has some
gold. Javanese cashes are current there.
Next to this island is the large island of Sangeang, very Fol. 155V,
mountainous and peopled with many inhabitants. These people
go about plundering. It has many ports and many foodstuffs and Mand of
many slaves to sell. This island has a fair for robbers, who come Sangeang
here to sell what they have stolen from the other islands. It has a Toguo).
heathen king and they all all heathens. It is at the beginning of
the road to Timor which will be dealt with after Solor.
The island of Solor is very large. It has a heathen king. It has
many ports and many foodstuffs in great plenty. It has countless
tamarinds; it has a great deal of sulphur, and it is better known
for this product than for any other. They take a large quantity
of foodstuffs from this island to Malacca, and they take tamar-
inds and sulphur. There is so much of this sulphur that they
take it as merchandise from Malacca to Cochin China, because it
is the chief merchandise that goes there from Malacca. Between
this island of Solor and that of Bima is the channel of the Timor
islands, where the sandalwoods are, which will be described next.
The same merchandise is of value in the said islands as in Java.
Between the islands of Bima and Solor there is a wide channel Islands of
Timor ^
where the
white
* By ‘Islands of Timor’ is meant the great Timor Island, and Sumba or sandal-
Sandalwood Island, as it is still called. Rodrigues’ map (fol. 37) has Ajflha de wood
timor homde nape 0 ssamdollo (The Island of Timor where the sandalwood comes
grows). from.
along which they go to the sandalwood islands. All the islands
204
TOME FIRES
Merchan-
dise that
is of value
in Timor,
Batu
Tara
(Batu-
tara)*.
from Java onwards are called Timor, for timor means ‘east in
the language of the country, as if they were saying the islands of
the east. As they are the most important, these two from which
the sandalwood comes are called the islands of Timor. The
islands of Timor have heathen kings. There is a great deal of
white sandalwood in these two. It is very cheap because there is
no other wood in the forests. The Malay merchants say that God
made Timor for sandalwood and Banda for mace and the Moluc-
cas for cloves, and that this merchandise is not known anywhere
else in the world except in these places; and I asked and en-
quired very diligently whether they had this merchandise any-
where else and everyone said not.
With a good wind you can sail from this channel to the islands
of the Moluccas in six or seven days. These islands are un-
healthy; the people are not very truthful. They go to these
island[s] every year from Malacca and from Java, and the sandal-
wood comes to Malacca. It sells well in Malacca, because it is
used in all the nations here, more especially among the heathen.
They take sinabaffs there, panchavilezes, sinhauas, balachos,
cotobalachos, which are white cloths, coarse Cambay cloth, and
[in return] for a little merchandise they load their junks with
sandalwood. The voyage to Timor is remunerative, and un-
healthy. They leave Malacca in the monsoon and on their way to
Banda; they say that on this route there are reefs between the
lands of Bima and Solor and that the junks are lost unless they
go through the channel, and there is this risk for about half a
league, and that it is good to enter by day.
Opposite the islands of Solor is the island which is called
Batu Tara. It is a heathen island with many foodstuffs. From it
the route is straight ahead for Banda and for Amboina; and
* Batutara — Batu Tara or Komba island (Lat. 7° 47' S., Long, 36' E.)
lies some twenty-five miles northward of Lomblen, the largest island of the
Solor group. Rodrigues’ map has Batutara. Ships going from Malacca to the
Spice Islands followed the course Java — Batu Tara — Buru; thence either to
Banda or to the Moluccas. So the course is described in the rutter in the
Livro de Marinharia (p. 267). This is how Rodrigues came to record Batu-
tara on his map, because he passed by there when he went to Banda with
Antonio de Abreu in 1512. Hamy {op. cit., p. 175) identifies Rodrigues’
Batutara with Wetter or Wetta island, a mistake due perhaps to the fact that
Galvao refers to Vitara, probably meaning Wetta, after Malua.
BANDA
205
because the other islands along by Solor are not much good for
trade because they are out of reach, I do not deal with them.
They are all lands of heathen robbers; they have foodstuffs,
much rice, sago. I will now speak only of Banda, as we are so
fond of the fruits of its soil.
[BANDA, CERAM, AMBOINAJ
The islands of Banda are six; five produce mace and one has
fire [a volcano]. The chief one is called Pulo Banda. This one
has four ports; Celammon {Calamom), Olutatam, Lontar {Bom-
tar), Komber {Comber). In comparison with the others this
* Rodrigues’ map (fol. 37) has a group of seven or eight small islands of
different sizes with the inscription — Jlhas de bamda Homde Nafem as mafes
(Islands of Banda where the maces grow). P. Kernel’s maps of c. 1517 and
c. 1518 have ‘Islands of babay, here are the maces’, babay being a miswriting
for bada\ L. Homem’s map of 1512 has de bamda\ Torreno’s map of 1522
has Y°‘s de bandam-, Reinel’s map of c. 1524 has banda-, most of the later maps
have either Banda or Bandam.
The island de foguo (fire, referring to the volcano) is Gunong Api.
PuLLO Bamdam is Lontar or Great Banda Island. Of this island’s four ports
mentioned by Pires, Calamom corresponds to Selamo or Celammon, which
lies on the west side of the island’s north point; it may be Pigafetta’s Zoroboa,
the name he gave to the largest island in his drawing of Bandan archipelago.
Olutatam, which Barros calls Lutatam (ill, v, 6) giving it as the main port,
may correspond to a place called Ortata or Gt. Waling, on the north side of
the island, opposite Neira. Bomtar (perhaps a transcriber’s mistake, in which
he mistook the I for b, as in the case of bombo or Lombok), corresponds to
Lontar, which gives its name to the island and lies on the north side,
opposite Gunong Api. Comber is Komber, between Ortata and Selano.
Pulo aee is Ai or Aij Island, which lies westward of Lontar. It is called
Pulae by Pigafetta and Ay by Barros.
Pulo Rud is Run, the westernmost island of the group. It is called
Pulurun by Pigafetta and Rom by Barros, and it appears as P. rond on
Berthelot’s map of 1635. This map is the first to give a fairly complete repre-
sentation of the Banda group. Besides Banda and P. rond, it shows P- caPas,
or Kapal Island, which lies north-westward of the north point of Lontar,
and P. Soangin, or Suangi Island, thirteen miles north-west of Gunong Api.
Ai, Gunong Api and Rozengain (this last too near to Lontar) are also repre-
sented, but without names.
Pulo bomcagy, possibly a transcriber’s mistake, must correspond to
Rozengain, which Pigafetta calls Rosoghin, and Galvao and Barros call
Rosolanguim-, it lies five miles east-south-east of Lontar.
Lanacaqe must correspond to Nailaka islet, which lies close to the north
coast of Run Island. Pigafetta calls it Lailaca.
Islands
Banda
(Bam-
dam)'.
2o6 tome fires
island has a greater quantity of mace. These [islands] have
villages; they have no king; they are ruled by cabilas and by the
Fol. J56r. elders. | Those along the sea-coast are Moorish merchants. It is
thirty years since they began to be Moors in the Banda islands.
There are a few heathen inside the country. In all there must be
between two thousand five hundred and three thousand persons
in these islands. The mace is a fruit like peaches or apricots, and
when it is ripe it opens and the outer pulp falls, and that in the
inside turns red, and this is the mace on the nutmeg, and they
gather them and put them to dry. This fruit is ripe all through
the year; it is gathered every month. About five hundred bahars
of mace must be produced every year in the islands as a whole,
or even six hundred; and there must be six or seven thousand
bahars of nutmeg, and that every year, sometimes more, some-
times less. It is not always of one kind, and they say that these
islands used to produce a thousand bahars of mace. This island
alone which is called Banda is larger than all the others put
together. Another island is called Neira. This is a port where the
Javanese anchor; it is called Port Neira. It produces mace. And
the other three islands, to wit, Pulo Ai (Aee) and Pulo Run (Rud)
and Pulo Bomcagy, are three small islands which produce mace.
They have no ports in which you can anchor. They bring their
mace to the island of Banda. All are in sight of and near to one
another. I do not speak of the island [of Fogoy because it does
not trade, nor of another small island called Nailaka (Lanacaqe)
which produces sago.
The people of these islands have straight black hair. They are
richer now than they used to be, because now they sell their
mace better and for better prices. Formerly the Javanese and
Malays used to sail to these islands every year bringing a little
cloth, calling at Java. They sold there the most and best of their
cloths for cashes and for other low-class things, and went from
there to Sumbawa and to Bima, and they sold the merchandise
they brought from Java in these two islands. They used to make
a profit both on what they sold in Java and on what they took
from Java to the said islands of Bima and Sumbawa; and in the
' This island is Gunong Api; the word fogo is obviously omitted in
the MS.
BANDA
207
islands they used to buy cloth that sold well in Banda, and in
exchange for it and for Java cashes they used to buy mace; and as
soon as the junk reached Banda they used to take command of
the country, and bought as they wished as long as they stayed
there; and when the people of Banda had good cloth in their
hands it was a great novelty to them, and they used to fix a price
for the people of the country, and the captains of the junk were
adored by the people.
Now, since these islands of Banda have been visited by the
ships and have come under the jurisdiction of the King our lord,
it is not done like this, but the people of Banda can obtain
the rich cloth in great quantities and at small prices, always
receiving favours and gifts and good companionship from the
Portuguese, who go there to buy for gold and rich things that
which the Moors buy for straw, and they are still discontented
with our companies.
SinabaflPs of all kinds and every other kind of fine white cloth Merchan-
from Bengal; all the cloths from Bonuaquelim, to wit, enrolados
of large, medium and small ladrilho, topetins and cloth of all
kinds from Gujarat, so that the people of Banda must be called
fortunate, and it is not without cause that the kings of the
Moluccas, who know about the things of Banda, sigh for us, as
■will be told when the noble islands are described. And the
merchants who used to sail there used to buy for old pots and
trinkets and beads from Cambay and other things like that, so
that there is no doubt that Banda is wealthier now. Banda also
has cloves which come in loads from the Moluccas to Amboina
and from Amboina to Banda, this in twelve or fifteen days with
the monsoon. A bahar of cloves is worth the same as a bahar of
mace, and one of mace the same as seven of nutmeg, and they
will not sell you mace and nutmeg except together, that is, if you
want a bahar of mace you have to buy seven bahars of nutmeg,
because otherwise the merchandise could not stand it, because
the nutmeg would be lost if they did not sell it in this way. ] The Fol. 156V.
chief merchandise for Banda is the Gujarat cloth, to wit, red and
black bretangis, cafutos, white and black maindts, corafones cloth,
patolas, and after these [there is] cloth from Bengal and after
Bengal from Bonuaquelin, from Gujarat, lamedares, many
2o8
TOME FIRES
sabones^. When the account is made up, each bahar of mace costs
three cruzados or three and a half, according to the goods for
which you buy, and there are some for which it costs four; as for
cloth, the finer it is the more you have to pay, because their
idea is [to have] coarse clothing for the people, and because
people come to Banda from a great many outside islands to buy
Banda cloth, from Gillolo {Bato YmboY to Papua^, from
Papua to the Moluccas, and many other islands. They buy in
Banda according to the weight of the Malacca bahar; whoever
goes there takes the scales and weighs freely in Banda. Banda has
ivory tusks and gold, which are brought from other islands to be
sold.
The islands of Banda have hardly any foodstuffs. The sur-
rounding islands bring foodstuffs to sell there, and the junks
that go there take rice from Bima and things to eat. Sago is used
for money in the country. Sago is bread, the same shape as a
brick; it is made of the pith of a tree and baked very hard. They
” Maindis and panos de coRAgoNES. It is not clear whether ‘white and
black maindis’ (the meaning of which I cannot find) are the same as panos de
cor af ones, or whether they are two different kinds of cloth. Again, panos de
corafones may mean ‘cloths from Khorasan’ or ‘cloths with hearts’ (painted
or embroidered). Patola was a silk cloth, sometimes embroidered or mixed
with cotton. When referring to the ‘Isles of Bandam’, Barbosa mentions
‘Patolas (that is to say Cambaya cloths)’, ii, 198. Sabones may mean soaps.
Or is it perhaps the name of some other cloth? The whole sentence is very
confused indeed.
* Bato Ymbo may correspond to Batochina, the old Portuguese name for
the southern peninsula or the whole of Gillolo Island or Halmaheira. One
of the highest mountains in Gillolo is Mount Ibu (4528 feet or 1260 m),
whence flows the Ibu River. Batu means rock or stone in Malay.
3 Rodrigues’ map has to the north of Ceram a large island, the situation
of which suggests Gillolo, with the inscription — Jlha depapoia eajente della
sam cafres (Island of Papua and its people are Cafres). The map of c. 1 540 has
as jlhas papuas to the east of Gillolo; Dourado’s atlases have the north coast
of a large land denominated Costa dos papuas (c. 1573), or simply OS
PAPVAS (1580), close to the coast of Gillolo, which corresponds to the
north-east coast of New Guinea; in Luis’ atlas of 1563, prior to Dourado, the
same coast is already called noua guinea. The Malay word papuwah stands for
‘frizzle-haired’, i.e. the cafres mentioned by Rodrigues. It is likely that Pires,
as well as Rodrigues, refers to the north-west part of New Guinea, though
the information they had of the islands westward of Banda and the Moluccas
was incomplete and rather confused. Later on, in his description of the island
of Batochina (Gillolo), Pires refers to ‘the island of Papua, which is about
eighty leagues from Banda’.
PLATE XXVI
Rodrigues’ map (fol. 36) showing the East and North Coast of
Borneo, eastern end of Java, Madura, Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa
(pp. 522-3)
CERAM
209
bring a great deal from the islands near to the islands of Banda
and It IS used for money— so much sago for such and such a
thing m the same way as pepper in Base. Banda has some large
islands two or three days’ journey away, from which they obtain
supplies. They belong to heathens, all of them agricultural
people.
Three islands are near Banda. The nore^ parrots come from
the island of Papua. Those which are prized more than any
others come from the islands called Am {Daru)\ birds which
they bring over dead, called birds of paradise {passavos de Deus),
they say they come from heaven, and that they do not know
how they are bred; and the Turks and Persians use them for
making panaches— they are very suitable for this purpose. The
Bengalees buy them. They are good merchandise, and only a
few come.
Two days’ sail away, or less, is the end of the large island of [Ceram}
Ceram {CeirdY\ this is leaving out Amboina {Amhom\ because
Amboina is almost up against the islands of Ceram. The islands
of Ceram begin at the island of Goram {Guramy and almost
touch the Moluccas; and the island is narrow and can be navi-
gated on the inside along by Amboina as well as on the outside,
and so it has ports on both sides, and villages inland. The ports
of Gule Gule, Bemuaor, Cejlam, and others are on the way to
* Nore or lory, from the Malay nuri, ‘a name given to various brilliant-
coloured varieties of parrots which are found in the Moluccas and other
islands of the Archipelago’. Hobson-jfobson, s.v. Lory; Dalgado, s.v. Nore.
Rodrigues’ map has written I dos papagaios (Island of the Parrots) between
Buro and Ambom.
* Pires’ ilhas Daru corresponds to ilhas de Aru, the islands of Aru. The map
of c. 1 540 is the first to record aru; it appears again in Dourado’s atlases.
3 Ceram or Serang. Rodrigues shows on his map a large island on which
are written the names ambom and gullegulle; between this island and certain
small islands to the east is written geiram tern houro (Ceram has gold). No
doubt this last inscription refers to Ceram, because Gule Gule is situated
there. L. Homem’s atlas of 1519 has a more correctly shaped SEILAM.
INSULA. Reinel’s map of c. 1524 has ceilam, indicating a small island
east-north-east of Ceram; the map of c. 1540 has J. de cajlom. But in
D. Homem’s atlas of 1568 the island has written across it batackina de
ambo.
* Goram or Gorong lies south-east of Ceram. It actually gives its name to a
group of three small islands — Goram, Panjang and Manawoka.
O
H.C.S. I.
210
TOME FIRES
Banda, and behind are Tana Muar, Uli {Olu), Varam}\ and they
say that the navigation behind is very safe. To sum up, the
Amboina islands are these: Amboina, Hitu, Haruku {Ytaqoay),
Honimoa, Nusa Laut {Vulmifolao). If in what I say of these
islands, together with Banda, I disagree with the pilots, it is not
my fault, because in this I am relying on people who have been
' Gule Gule — After Rodrigues’ map had recorded gullegulle, the port that
he visited with Abreu in 1512, almost every Portuguese map up to the seven-
teenth century shows that name, properly situated at the south-east end of
Ceram. There still exists a place Gule Gule, or Goele Goele, on the south
side of the south-eastern extremity of Ceram. Gule Gule lies at the south-
west corner of a lagoon which separates the south-east point of Ceram from
the mainland. Hamy situates Gule Gule at Piru bay, on the south-west coast
of Ceram, ‘au fond de la bale de Tarouno, ou la riviere Kolli-Kolli porte
encore le nom que le commandant portugais attribue ^ son mouillage (Guli-
Guli)’. Op. cit., p. 167. Though there is a small stream called Kole Kole on
the east side of Piru bay, the name Gule Gule still survives where all the early
Portuguese maps rightly placed it — at the south-eastern extremity of the
island.
Bemuaor — It seems as if Pires’ description is following the south coast of
Ceram, from east to west. Bemuaor may correspond to Bemu, an anchorage
near the mouth of a river — Wai Bobot — at the eastern side of the large Teluti
bay, about the middle of the south coast of Ceram. The last part of the word
muaor may be related to muar, which means ‘mouth of a river’ in Malay.
Cejlam — At the end of Elpaputi bay, on the south coast of Ceram, one of
the principal places is Paulohi or Poeleh; on some Dutch maps of Ceram it
is also called Sahoelaoe or Sahoelaoe Lama, the pronunciation of which is not
far from the Portuguese Cejlam. It is curious to note that the whole island of
Ceram is called Seilam in L. Homem’s atlas of 1519, and I. de cajlom on the
map of c. 1540. Reinel’s map of c. 1524 has a small island called ceilam off the
north-east end of Ceram; Dourado’s atlases have the same small island under
the names of cailam, cailao or caillao.
Tana — ^There is a good anchorage in front of Tanah Gojang village, in
Piru bay. However, there is also Tanjong Tanduru or Tananurong, the
north-west corner of the island, which might suggest Pires’ Tana or even
Tana Muar.
Muar — Galvao says that after Burn and Amboina the ships of Abreu
‘coasted along that [island] which is called Muar Damboino, and anchored in
a haven called Guli Guli’. I was unable to establish any connexion between
Pires’ Muar and Galvao’s Muar Damboino, which seems to refer to Ceram,
though some connexion certainly exists between the two.
Olu — There is a village, river and cape called Uli on the north coast of
Ceram.
Varam — This may correspond to a place called Wairama, at Hatiling bay,
close to the port of Wahai, the most important on the north coast of Ceram.
It is possible that the word was originally written Uaram, the v of Varam
standing for a u.
AMBOINA
2II
there; I have learnt this from Moors, from their charts, which I
have seen many times, and if their charts are not to be trusted,
let it be clear that this should be for reading and not for
navigation.
The people of Banda are cunning enough to have a village in
the mountains where they foregather when they feel they are in
any danger in the villages along the sea coast, and they collect
everything up there in the mountains; and Banda is something
so small and weak that it is at the mercy of any junk that goes
there, whether it be Javanese of Malayan. And after that there is
nothing more to be said of Banda. I have decided to pass on to
the Moluccas, where our aims are paramount, by way of
Amboina.
Amboina is one island and next to it are Hitu ( Yta), Haruku Islands of
{Cuaij), Honimoa (VulT), Nusa Laut (NucalaoY, and they are ^”**°*”^
(Ambon).
' Ambon, or Amboina, is represented together with Ceram as a single
island on Rodrigues’ map. Albuquerque says in his letter of 20 Aug. 1512
that the ships of Abreu’s expedition might go ‘to be overhauled (espalmar)
at a cape called ambam, on a large island which lies four days’ sail from the
Clove Islands’ {Cartas, i, 68); in the Comentdrios (iii, xxxvii) Amboino is
substituted for ambam. L. Homem’s atlas of 1519 has ambonyo, well separated
from Ceram, though south-westward of buyo or Buru (also called Buyo, in
Livro de Marinharia, some old written forms of r being easily mistaken for
a y)\ Torreno’s map of 1522 has ambuon south-west oigelolo, between buiro
and Y‘^S de bandam\ Reinel’s map of c. 1524 has anboinafl) on the western
part of Ceram; the map of c. 1540 has an island close to the south-west of
Ceram, corresponding to the Amboina group, but J. danobueno is written
over Ceram; later maps usually have amboino. The Dutch still call the Am-
boina island Ambon.
Yta — Although, above, this word was coupled with the next, so as to form
Ytaqoay, the two words are here distinctly separated as Yta and cuaij. Yta
must correspond to Ito or Hitu, perhaps reported to Pires as a distinct island
from Amboina, which consists practically of two islands of unequal size lying
parallel to each other, united at one point by a low sandy isthmus less than a
mile in width. The northern, and larger, peninsula is called Hitu. Amboina
road is in the southern peninsula, which forms with the southern coast of the
northern peninsula, west of the isthmus, the large and deep Amboina bay.
Guerreiro (1601) refers to the port, town and island of Ito, as distinct from
Amboino, where the Portuguese had the main settlement and fort. The other
islands of the group, which he mentions, are Oma, (Haruku) Oliacer (Saparua
or Honimoa), and Rossalau (Nussa Laut). RelafSo Anual, ii, 2, xvi, xvii.
Berthelot’s map of 1635 has hito, written on the north coast of Amboena.
According to Crawfurd {Dictionary) the natives call the island Hitu, the
usual name being derived from that of its chief town — ‘ Ambun’.
01
H.C.S. I.
212
TOM^ FIRES
all nearly up against the coast of Ceram, The people of the island
are woolly-haired, bestial; they have no merchandise and they
have not a very good port; they have no trade. It is a place of
Fol. i57r. dangerous people. Those who want to pass on | to the Moluccas
stay there, as is known. They could pass if they wanted to, but
because the Moors have no metal anchors and are not seamen,
but leave everything at the slightest danger and go swimming
away, they do not do their navigation as they should. It always
took two or three years from Malacca to Banda and the Moluc-
cas, and many junks are lost; and it is not surprising, because the
Moors from these parts know nothing at all [of seamanship], and
the mariners are slaves, and it is all the same to them whether
they are in Java or the Moluccas, so they have no need to hurry,
and consequently make their journeys long. I now pass on to
the Moluccas to which Amboina is subject.
MOLUCCAS
We have reached the Molucca {Maluqo) islands,^ because it is
not our intention to go farther on from here, as there is no need
CuAij — This may correspond to Oma or Haruku island, the next to the
east of Amboina, from which it is separated by Haruku strait. On the western
part of the south coast of Haruku there is the village of Oma, eastward of which
is another place and cape called Waisoi or Wasai.
VuLL — As in the case of Ytaqoay, the transcriber had previously written
vullmjfalao as one word; but here the two words are well separated. Vull must
be Oliacer, Saparua or Honimoa island, the third of the large islands in the
Amboina group, lying eastward of Haruku and very close to it. This corre-
sponds perhaps to the nucilloell which appears in Dourado’s atlases, south-
east of amhoino, and is mentioned by Castanheda as Nunciuel (vni, cc). It is
possible that this is meant for ‘Nusa Uel’.
Nucalao — Nusa Laut, the easternmost island of the Amboina group,
lying south-east of Saparua and very close to it. It may be the allad or allam
seen in Dourado’s atlases, next to nucilloell. So the relative positions of Am-
boina, Haruku, Saparua and Nusa Laut follow the order in which Fires
mentions the four names.
* Francisco Serrao, the captain of one of the ships in Abreu’s expedition to
the Spice Islands, was the first European to visit the Moluccas, where he
arrived in 1512, living there probably until the beginning of 1521, when he
died. Abreu’s fleet arrived back in Malacca in December 1512, and Rodri-
gues left for India at the beginning of January 1513, before he could know
of the first information sent by Serrao from T ernate, which reached Malacca
in the middle of 1513. This is why the Moluccas on Rodrigues’ map (fol. 37)
MOLUCCAS
213
for this, but just the clove islands, and from there I will turn
back home.
The Molucca islands which produce cloves are five, to wit,
the chief one is called Ternate and another Tidore and another
Motir {Motes) and another Makyan {Maqujem) and another
Bachian {Pacham). And there is also a great deal of wild cloves
in the port of Gillolo (Jetlolo) in the land of the island of Gillolo
{Batochina). According to what they say, Mohammedanism in
the Molucca islands began fifty years ago. The kings of the
islands are Mohammedans, but not very deeply involved in the
sect. Many are Mohammedans without being circumcised, and
there are not many Mohammedans. The heathen are three parts
and more out of four. The people of these islands are dark-
skinned; they have sleek hair. They are at war with one another
most of the time. They are almost all related.
These five islands must produce about six thousand bahars of
cloves a year — sometimes a thousand more, or a thousand less.
It is true that merchandise bought in Malacca for five hundred
reis will buy a bahar of cloves in the Moluccas. The bahar is
by Malacca weight, because they weigh it in accordance with
that, and the merchants take the scales, as it is sometimes worth
more, sometimes less, just a little. There are six crops of
have only the inscription — estas quatro Jlhas Azues ssam as de malluquo homde
nage ho cram (these four islands [painted in] blue are those of Maluco, where
the clove grows). P. Kernel’s map of c. 1517 and that of c. 1518 have ‘islands of
Maluco where there is the clove’; L. Homem’s atlas of 1519 has MALVC^.
INSVLE; J. Kernel’s map of c. 1519 has ‘islands of Maluco from where the
clove comes’. Torreno’s map of 1522, and the planisphere of c. 1523 (Turin),
both drawn in Spain after the arrival of the Vitoria, the only surviving ship of
Magellan’s expedition, which had passed through the Moluccas in 1521, are
the first to record the individual names of the islands. Torreno’s map has
terranati, tidorj, maqujan, bachia, and INSVLA DE GELOLO] the planis-
phere has tarenate, tedore aqui cargaro (Tidore, here they loaded), motil,
maq . . ., gilolo\ Pigafetta’s manuscript has Tarenate, Tadore, Mutir, Machiam
or Machian, Backiam or Bachian, and Giailonlo, Gtailolo, Giaiallo oxlaialolo.
The first known Portuguese map to give the names of the islands is that of
c. 1540, which has ternate, montell, maquiam, bacham. Varthema describes
the voyage he says he made to ‘the island of Monoch where the cloves grow',
and refers to ‘many other neighbouring islands . . . uninhabitated’; but the
famous Bolognese was never there. Barbosa mentions Pachel [Pachan or
Bachiam), Moteu, Machiam, Tidor and Tanarte. Pires is, however, the first
to give a proper description of the Moluccas, and Kodrigues the first to
represent them on a map, though neither was ever actually there.
tom 6 fires
The
island of
Temate,
our friend.
214
cloves every year. Eight junks used at one time to go from
Malacca to Banda and the Moluccas, and three or four [of
them were] from Grisee, and as many more from Malacca. The
ones from Malacca belonged to Curia Deva^, a Chetti merchant,
and those from Grisee to Pate Cufuf who had the trade
there; and there were other merchants as well, both Javanese
and Malay, but these two were the chief merchants; each of
them has made a large sum of gold in this trade. Cloves were
always worth nine or ten cruzados a bahar in Malacca when
they were plentiful, and twelve cruzados a bahar when they
were scarce.
The chief island of all the five is the island of Ternate. The
king is a Mohammedan. He is called Sultan Bern Acorala?-. They
say he is a good man. His island produces at least a hundred and
fifty bahars of cloves every year. Two or three ships can anchor
in the port of this island; this is a good village. This king has
some foreign merchants in his country. They say that the island
must contain up to two thousand men, and up to two hundred
will be Mohammedans. This king is powerful among his
neighbours. His country is abundant in foodstuffs from the land,
although many foodstuffs come to the Molucca kings from
other islands, as will be told later. Only the king of Ternate is
called Sultan; the others are called Raja. He is at war with his
father-in-law, Baja Almanfor^, king of the island of Tidore. He
has as many as a hundred paraos. The island must be six leagues
round. There is a mountain in the middle of this island, which
yields a great deal of sulphur, which burns in great quantities'^.
This king has half the island of Motir (Motei) for his own,
* According to Barros (ii, ix, 4) this Curia Deva was an enemy of the
Portuguese and helped and incited Pate Quedir and Pate Unus against them.
* Barbosa calls him Soltam Binaracola, and Pigafetta raya Abuleis. How-
ever, Barros says that ‘the name of this king of Temate (who helped Serrao)
was Cachil Boleise, a man of great age and much prudence, whom the Moors
held almost for a prophet in what he said’, (in, v, 6).
3 Barros (in, viii, 9-10) refers extensively to Almanfor, king of Tidore, and
his quarrels with the Portuguese. Pigafetta calls him raia sultan Manzor.
* Actually Temate island, eight miles long from north to south, and six
miles broad, is composed almost exclusively of a conical volcano, 5184 feet
( 1 580 m) in height, which has been in a state of constant activity for more than
300 years.
MOLUCCAS
215
whence he gets many foodstuffs. [The people of] Ternate are
more tractable than those in any of the other [islands], although
another has a better port, and more trade because of it. They say
that this king dispenses justice. He keeps his people obedient.
He says he would be glad to see Christian priests, because if our
faith seemed to him good he would forsake his sect and turn
Christian.
This king of Ternate, being a man of good judgement, when Fol 157V.
he heard that Francisco Serrao was in Amboina, sent for him
and for other Portuguese who were wrecked in the voyage of
Antonio de Abreu, and received them in his country and did
them honour; and the said king wrote letters to Malacca saying
how he and his lands were the slaves of the King our lord, as
will be seen at greater length in his letters, which were brought
by Antonio de Miranda who went to Banda and sent to Amboina
whither the letters had arrived, having been brought by Fran-
cisco Serrao, who returned to Ternate, because that was the
arrangement*.
The people of Ternate are knights among those of the Moluc-
cas. They are men who drink wines of their kind. Ternate has
good water. It is a healthy country with good air. The king of
Ternate has four hundred women within his doors, all daughters
of men of standing; he has many daughters by them. When the
king goes to war he rallies forth with a crown of gold, and his
sons wear them also as a mark of dignity. These crowns are of
moderate value.
The country produces cloves. A great deal of iron comes from Merchan-
dise there
* Barros says that in 1513 ‘Antdnio de Miranda went with a fleet to the isin
Islands of the Moluccas and Banda’, (iii, v, 6). Patalim, who was then Captain Ternate.
of Malacca, also says in his evidence in the so-called ‘Process of the Moluccas’
of 1524, that he sent ‘Miranda with three ships, which went to Banda, and
from there to the Moluccas, where they found Serrao’. Cartas, iv, 167.
Amboina was then considered part of the southern Moluccas, which may
explain the rather confusing information given by Barros and Patalim. How-
ever Pires, who was writing in Malacca shortly after the return of Miranda, is
more precise. His information is confirmed by the very detailed and accurate
evidence given in the same ‘Process of the Moluccas’ by Brandao, who
declares that Miranda had not gone farther than Banda. Ibidem, p. 170. Next
year, 1514, Miranda went again to Banda, but only in 1515 did two junks
under the command of Alvaro Coelho reach Ternate, returning to Malacca
laden with cloves.
2i6
TOME FIRES
Merchan-
dise of
value in
Ternate.
How
cloves
grow.
outside, from the islands of Banggai {Bemgaiay, iron axes,
choppers, swords, knives. Gold comes from other islands. It has
some little ivory; it has coarse native cloth. A great many parrots
come from the islands of Morotai (MorY, and the white parrots
come from Ceram.
Coarse cloth from Cambay is of value in the Moluccas; and
for the finer sort, all the enrolado cloth from Bonuaqueliin, with
large, medium or small ladrilho, patolas, all the coarse and white
cloth, as for instance, synhauas, balachos, panchavelizes, coto-
halachos’, but the principal merchandise is cloth from Cambay
and the tails of white oxen and cows which they bring from
Bengal.
Cloves have six crops a year; others say that there are cloves
all the year round, but that at six periods in the year there are
more. After flowering it turns green and then it turns red; then
they gather it, some by hand and some beaten down with a pole,
and red as it is they spread it out on mats to dry, and it turns
black. They are small trees. Cloves grow like myrtle berries, a
great many heads grow together. All this fruit is in the hands of
the natives, and it all comes through their hands to the sea-
coast.
Although this island of Ternate is the most distant of all from
Amboina, and the next in order ought to be the nearest to
Amboina, which is Bachian {Pachdo), yet as Ternate is the best,
it has been described first, and also because the king is a vassal
of the King our lord; and now I will go towards Amboina,
describing the islands.
* Banggai Island is one of the more important in the Banggai archipelago,
which lies 300 miles south-west of Ternate, off Banggai peninsula, on the
east coast of central Celebes. Barbosa says; ‘Not very far off from these
islands (the Moluccas), to the west-south-west, at thirty leagues away, there
is another inhabited . . . island called Tendaya (or Bangaya, in the Spanish
version). Much iron is found there which is taken to divers countries’. Dames
thought that ‘it is undoubtedly the island of Banggi which lies off the
northernmost point of Borneo’, (ii, 205). On Berthelot’s map of 1635, Bang-
gai island is correctly situated but called Pangara.
2 Morotai or Morti island lies thirteen miles east of the north-eastern point
of Gillolo, with the small Rau island and some islets close by. When later
describing the island of Batochina, or Gillolo, Fires asserts that the ‘islands of
Mor’ limit Gillolo on the north. Berthelot’s map has morotay correctly
situated.
MOLUCCAS
217
After leaving Ternate for Amboina [and] sailing three leagues, Island of
you see the island of Tidore. It is an island which is about ten
leagues round. The king of this island is a Mohammedan, an
enemy of the king of Ternate and his father-in-law. This king
has about two thousand men in his country, about two hundred
of whom are Mohammedans and the others are heathens. The
king is called Raja Almangor. He has many wives and children.
His country produces about one thousand four hundred bahars
of cloves a year. There is no port in this island where ships can
anchor. He is as powerful a king as the king of Ternate. He is
always at war. These two are the most important in the Moluc-
cas, and they compute that this king must have eighty paraos in
his country. This king has the king of Makyan {Maqiem) for his
vassal.
Half the island of Motir is also subject to this king. His
country produces many foodstuffs: rice, meat, fish. They say he
is a man of good judgement. This king is very desirous of trad-
ing with us, because the Moluccas Islands are going to ruin, and
for the last three years they have only gathered a few cloves,
because of the drop in navigation since the capture of Malacca.
Six leagues sail from this island of Tidore is the island of Fol. is8r.
Motir. This island is about four or five leagues round. It has a
mountain in the middle. Half the island obeys the king of Ter-
Island of
Motir
nate and the other half the king of Tidore; each of them has (Motei).
stationed his captain in his own land. This island is entirely
heathen; it has about six hundred men. This island produces
about one thousand two hundred bahars of cloves a year; each
captain will have four or five small lancharas. This island pro-
duces many foodstuffs, and each part supports its own lord.
The captains of these islands are heathens, knightly men.
important people, and they are friends.
Both the king of Tidore and this island of Motir bring their
cloves in paraos to the island of Makyan to be sold, because the
port where the junks come and anchor is there.
Five leagues away from the island of Motir, the island oilslai^of
Makyan appears. This island of Makyan is eight or nine leagues
round; it has about three thousand men; it has a hundred and em).
thirty paraos. It produces about one thousand five hundred
2i8
tom:6 pires
Islands of
Bachian
(Pa-
cham)*.
bahars of cloves a year. The king is called Raja Ucem. He is a
Mohammedan, and [so are] about three hundred men in his
country. This island of Makyan has a very good port. This is the
island where the junks load, and they bring the cloves to be sold
here from all the islands, with the exception of Ternate, whither
[some people] also go because of the port where they can
anchor. The king has almost as many foodstuffs as the others,
and he has more people and paraos than Tidore.
The Raja Ucem, king of this island of Makyan, is a first cousin
of the Raja Almangor, king of Tidore, and this king is to some
extent subject to the said king of Tidore. There are a few
foreigners in this port, and they greatly long for peace with us.
They say that he is a good man, and this is a land with more
trade than the others, and thus the junks come and anchor here.
The port is safe and good. Almost all the people are heathens.
They come to this island with merchandise from many islands.
They have an abundance of foodstuffs and good water, and they
say that the people on the sea-coast are tractable.
From this island of Makyan which I have described, it is
almost fourteen leagues to the islands of Bachian. These islands
of Bachian are ten or twelve. The island called Bachian produces
cloves, the others do not. The king of this island is called Raja
Cufuf. He has more land and more people than any of the kings
of the Moluccas, and more paraos. This king is a half-brother of
the king of Ternate; they are great friends. Almost all the people
are heathens. They have good ports. Those who have to load
cargoes in the Moluccas come here to sight this land, and they go
from here to other islands. Bachian is a chain of islands which
goes up to Ceram opposite Amboina. This island produces about
five hundred bahars of cloves every year. It produces a great
deal of pitch; it does not produce many foodstuffs, but they
” Bachian Island is the largest and southernmost of the five true Moluccas.
There are many islands near Bachian, the largest of which are Great Tawali
or Kasiruta, and Mandioli near the western part; about fifteen miles north-
wards lie the Ombi islands, eighty miles north of the north-western part of
Ceram. It seems that Bachian was first known to the Portuguese as Pacham.
Besides Pires’ reference, there is at least another contemporary document —
the evidence of Bartolomeu Gonsalves in the ‘Process of the Moluccas’ —
where the island is several times called Pacham. Cartas, iv, 163-4. Barbosa’s
Packet is certainly related to Pacham.
MOLUCCAS
219
bring plenty of them from the other islands. They do a great
deal of trade in their land. This island has parrots, mats and
other things which people come there to buy.
According to information I obtained, it is a very short time
since the cloves in this island were wild — in the same way as
wild plums become cultivated plums and wild olives become
cultivated olives and they say that originally these cloves were
not made use of, because the trees were covered up in wild
places, and that during the last ten years the cloves have been
made as good as any of the others, and that the cloves in this
island are increasing greatly. It is forty leagues from this island
to the island of Amboina. All the cloves from these five islands
are of equal goodness if they are gathered when they are
perfectly ripe.
In this island they also dry the branches of the trees with many
leaves on. This is merchandise, because in our part of Europe the
said leaves are used instead of betel, and since dried betel has
no flavour | they put the leaves in its place. It is a merchandise Pol- ^5Sv.
which they used to take to Venice by way of Alexandria, and it
must be quite twenty years that I have been using the said leaves
in Portugal instead of the said folio Indio which is beteP.
That ends the account of the five Molucca islands, coming
from Ternate to Amboina; and if that is not in order, go back
in the account from Amboina to Ternate, beginning with
Bachian. Do not say that the navigation from Malacca to the
Moluccas is dangerous, for it is a good route and convenient for
our ships, and with monsoon winds you can sail to Banda or
Amboina in a month, and from there to the Moluccas in a day
' We have seen already (p. 54) that Pires was wrong in identifying folio
indio with betel. But it seems that the leaves of the clove tree (Caryophyllus
aromaticus Linn.) were used as a substitute for the folium indum, though
Orta {Coll, xxiii) dismisses the idea. Linschoten says that ‘the leaves called
Folium Indum . . . have a sweet smell, almost like Cloves’. Hak. Soc. ed.,
II, 1 30-1. Though he had not been in the Moluccas, Pires certainly knew the
clove leaves well, and his statement is certainly most interesting. In his letter
of 8 Jan. 1515 to the King of Portugal, Jorge de Albuquerque, then Captain
of Malacca, writes that Antdnio de Miranda had arrived from Banda, whence
he went to Amboina to meet Serrao, and he was sending a branch with leaves
and a stem of the clove tree; then he adds that Tom^ Pires would explain all
these things. Cartas, iii, 136-7.
220
TOME FIRES
or two. Our well-equipped ships will not linger in Amboina;
they must go on to the Moluccas, especially anyone who has
been able to learn and investigate how to come from Portugal to
the Moluccas in such a short time; anyone will be able, as is
known, when his turn comes and if he works — anyone who is
jealous that things should be accomplished in the service of the
King our lord — to make the journey of the Moluccas not by way
of the coast of Java, but by Singapore, and from Singapore to
Borneo and from Borneo to the island of Buton {ButumY and
then to the Moluccas. Anyone who has sailed to the Moluccas
has always found this a very good way, in a monsoon, and quick.
The Java way to the Moluccas was officially established in this
manner: the route from Borneo to the Moluccas suits us well,
and the Java way suits the merchants of Malacca; the Borneo
one suits us because we do not put in to ports from country to
country, selling here, selling there, making money in each place
in such a way that the time draws out; and as they have little
capital and the sailors are slaves they make their journeys long
and profitable, because from Malacca they take merchandise to
sell in Java, and from Java merchandise to sell in Bima and
Sumbawa, and from these islands they take cloth for Banda and
the Moluccas, and that which they have kept in reserve from
Malacca. The people of Banda and the Moluccas adore them.
And so they do their trade, which they could not do along the
way by Borneo and Buton and Macassar.
We do not seize the opportunity of adding to our profits in
their crude way, nor are we as leisurely as they, because we take
paid people only. We take on liberal supplies and good cloth
and set out on our journey. We do our trade like Portuguese who
are not accustomed to it, and the petty cloths of the royal mer-
chants are carefully kept because they regret [they cannot take
the richer?] merchandise; and thus we make our way quickly.
Therefore the Borneo route suits us better, because we already
know (God be praised!) that it is good and fairly profitable.
After the Moluccas I have spoken of five islands; now I should
* Buton island appears like a prolongation of the south-eastern peninsula
of Celebes. Banda lies due east of the north part of Buton. Buton on Berthe-
lot’s map.
MOLUCCAS
221
also like to speak of the island of Gillolo on account of the port
of Gillolo, which has a great deal of cloves, and is near to our
friend Ternate.
The island of Gillolo is a long arm of land. One end of it is Island of
opposite to Amboina and Ceram and on the other side it extends
towards the north to the islands of Morotai. It is very large. It §^yna)i
is entirely heathen. It has many foodstuffs and many people
and many paraos. Some of them go pillaging; some of them go
trading — like all other nations. It is six leagues from Ternate to
this island. This is the port which is called Gillolo {Jeilolo). This
is the only port in the island of Gillolo. It has a Mohammedan
king. His port has many foodstuffs. He is an enemy of the king
of Ternate, and they raid and rob one another. Like the island
of Bachian, this land of Gillolo {Jeilolo) has a great deal of wild
cloves; they say that they are working to make it good. This
island has a good port, and the people are somewhat whiter than
those in the Moluccas.
There are a great many other islands around the Moluccas: Fol. isgr.
towards the north there are the islands of Morotai {Mor) and
Chiaoa, Tolo, Banggai {Bemgaya), and Sulu {^olor) to the west
of Celebe^, and they produce many foodstuffs. They come and
‘ Batochina, or Batochina do Moro, was the early name given by the Portu-
guese to Gillolo island, or Halmaheira, which has a length of about 190 miles
from north to south; its width across the centre is about 40 miles. Gillolo bay
and roadstead, and Gillolo village, lie about 20 miles north-west of Ternate.
‘The island of Moro, which they call also Batochina, along which lie the
Moluccas islands’, says Barros. (iv, i, 16). Castanheda refers to the island of
Batochina do moro (viii, cxiii). On the map of c. 1540 the island is called
Batachj. In D. Homem’s atlases of 1558 and 1568 it is called abachotina,
though the name is not written on the island, but off its eastern coast; but in
the atlas of 1 568 Ceram island is called batochina de ambo ( ?).
2 Chiaoa, coupled with Mor or Morotai, as it is, might suggest Tanjong
Salawai, the north-eastern point of the north-east peninsula of Gillolo, which
lies about thirty-five miles south of Morotai, and might have been taken for
an island. Pires’ Chiaoa, however, must correspond to Siau, a small island
north of the north-eastern point of Celebes, which is called Ciau by Pigafetta
and appears as chiau on the map of c. i S 4 ®> snd Ciao or Ciaos on later maps.
Tolo still survives in ‘Gulf of Tolo’, formed by the two eastern peninsulas
of central Celebes; at the northern end lie the Banggai islands. However, the
Gulf of Tolo and the Banggai islands lie south-west of the Moluccas.
Qolor corresponds to the Sulu archipelago, which lies north of Celebes,
and not west, as stated by Pires. Ribeiro’s maps of 1527 and 1529 have foZo;
solar on the anonymous map of c. 1540; osolor and osollor on later maps.
222
TOM^ PIRES
trade in the Moluccas; they bring gold. Some of these islands
also have people who are nearly white; but since it is not our
intention to write about these islands, because it would mean
writing about another hundred thousand, I make neither parti-
cular nor general mention of them here, except that they say
that in the island of Papua, which is about eighty leagues from
Banda, there are men with big ears who cover themselves with
them. I never saw anyone who saw anyone else who had seen
them. This story should be given no more importance than it
deserves.
Having recapitulated the things about the Moluccas in
accordance with what is said about them, I will not venture
farther; it was only my intention to come as far as here. Who-
ever is able to write of the great number and infinity of islands
there are from the straits of Kampar to Banda and from the
straights of Singapore to the islands of Japan {Jampom), which
are beyond China — and between this island and Banda there
must be an area of more than two or three thousand leagues
round — whoever is able let him speak of it. And it is certain
that many of [the islands] are worth speaking about, because
Celebe — This is the first time that Celebes is mentioned. The first known
cartographic record of the name is to be found on Reinel’s map of c. 1524,
where it is written felebes; the map of c. 1540 and D. Homem’s atlas of 1558
have pta dos celebres; Dourado’s atlases havep: dos selebres. Pta. de Celebres is
applied to the north-east point of Celebes, or North Cape. Luis’ atlas of 1563
is the first to have Ilha dos celebres, though several later Portuguese maps
continued to apply celebres or selebres to the north point only. Rodrigues’ map
has a long island west of the Moluccas — which very likely corresponds to the
north-eastern peninsula of Celebes — with the inscription: Ilha Vdama t
tern ssamdollo {Vdama island and it has sandalwood). Vdama may be a
corruption of Menado, an important place at the north-easternmost point of
Celebes, which appears as manado or manade on L. Homem’s (1554), D.
Homem’s and Dourado’s maps. Farther on Pires mentions the island Vdama,
next to macafar, among those that trade with Malacca. Abendanon thinks
that the name Celebe, Celebre or Celebres was first given to the north-eastern
point and then extended to the whole island, Celebe or Celebre corresponding
to the Bugi word sellihe (in which the h is sometimes pronounced as an r) and
meaning ‘current’; thus Pta. dos Celebres would mean Point or Cape of
Currents. Sur la signification du nom de Vile Celebes, p. 361 seqq. Whatever the
origin of the word Celebe may be, it was at first used in the singular (it appears
also as Celebe in the Spanish and Ramusio’s versions of the Book of Duarte
Barbosa, ii, 204), and later in the plural, Celebes, perhaps because the Portu-
guese considered it rather as a group of islands than as a single island.
CENTRAL ISLANDS
223
many have gold, but it would be never ending and tedious. I
will only speak of the few in this great abundance with which
Malacca is in communication now, or was in the past, and I will
touch on others in general terms, so that my project may be
completed, and if my project does not carry sufficient weight,
may I be forgiven.
These are the islands with which Malacca trades, and which
trade with Malacca: Tanjompura, the island of Laue, Quedon-
doaniy Samper y Billiton {Bilitam)y CatCy Pamucdy Macapary
VdamUy Madura, in addition to those I have mentioned, as can
be seen in detail earlier in this work. I will not speak of Burney
and the Luzon {Lupdes)y because I have already spoken of them
in the description of China.
[central islands]
The island of Tanjompura is an island which can be reached The
from Malacca in fifteen days in the monsoon. They go there
along the Singapore channel and along the Kampar [channel]; jompuraL
they take their course near Linga, between the islands of Linga
and Monoby. This island is heathen; it is almost entirely subject
’ Fires’ ‘island’ of Tamjompura corresponds to Tanjong Puting, on the
south coast of Borneo. When Fires wrote his Suma, the Portuguese had not
yet visited Borneo and Celebes. He was ill-informed, or mistook the informa-
tion given to him, about these places he mentions as ‘islands’; actually most
of them were simple ports of Borneo or Celebes. Barros says that Gon9alo
Pereira, who had been appointed to the captaincy of the Moluccas, sailed
from Malacca in August 1530 via Borneo, where he called at Tanjapura,
among other ports of that island. He adds that ‘near the City of Tanjapura
there are many diamonds, finer than those of India’ (iv, vi, 19). Castanheda
repeats exactly the same information (viii, xxi). Orta mentions an old mine
{roca velha) of diamonds ‘in the Strait of Tanjampur, in the regions of Mal-
acca’ (Coll. 43). Early Portuguese maps enable us to identify the situation of
Tamjompura. It is shown for the first time on the map of c. 1 540, as tajapura\
then on L. Homem’s map of 1554 as tamjampura\ taiampur in D. Homem’s
atlas; taiaopuro in Dourado’s atlases, always on the south coast of Borneo.
If these maps left any doubt about the exact situation of Tanjampura,
Berthelot’s map of 1635 is quite explicit: on it Tanjompura is already written
Tanjao Pute and corresponds to Tanjong Puting, exactly in the same latitude
(3° 31' S.). Inland, northward of Tanjao Pute, is inscribed: Aqui he a roca
velha dos diamantes (Here is the old diamond mine). See note on Borneo,
p. 132.
TOM^ PIRES
224
to Pate Unus, lord of Japara. This island has a Pate governor
who is lord of the island. It is an island fifty leagues round. It
has a great deal of gold, and rice and other foodstuffs; it has
many diamonds; it has junks, pangajavas; it has many inhabi-
tants. Merchandise comes from Malacca: cloths that are of value
in Java, chiefly red and black hretangis and cheap white cloth
from Bengal. They bring foodstuffs and diamonds and gold. No
other place is known where there are diamonds except in the
kingdom of Orissa (Rixia), near Bengal. These are the best, and
then come those from this island of Tanjompura, and then those
from Laue. They are not found anywhere else. The people of
this island are traders; they have many slaves which are brought
to them from other islands, in addition to their own. They have a
great deal of honey and wax.
Island of This island of Laue is four days’ journey beyond Tanjompura.
Laue'.
' Though written lane, this is obviously a transcriber’s mistake for laue, as
it appears in early maps and references. In the passages where they refer to
Tanjopura, Barros also mentions Lave and Castanheda Laue, as two of the
principal seaports in Borneo. When he says that Laue is ‘beyond Tanjompura' ,
Pires seems to mean that it lies eastward of that place. However, all early
Portuguese maps which have Laue, place it westward of Tanjompura. The
map ofc. 1540 h&s laue {or lane)\ la{u)e on\j. Homem’smap of 15^4.; laue onde
foi do manoel de lima in D. Homem’s atlas of 1568; llaue dodefoi dom manoell
de lima in Dourado’s atlases. The chroniclers do not mention this voyage of
D. Manuel de Lima to Laue, but Castanheda says that in 1537 he was in
Malacca (viii, clxxviii). Laue is not to be found on modern maps. Berthelot’s
map has Laban, }ust north of Sucadana (Sukadana), in south-west Borneo,
and A. Hamilton’s map of 1727 (apud Dames, ii, 207) still has Lava, south of
Sukadana. After the death of Magellan at Sebu, the ships of his expedition
went to Palawan and to Brunei in 1521. When describing Brunei (Burne)
Pigafetta speaks of ‘a large city named Laoe, which is located at the end of
(in capo de) this island toward Java Major, which was destroyed and sacked
because it refused to obey this king (of Burne), but the king of Java Major
instead’. This passage has rather baffled Pigafetta’s commentators in their
attempts to identify Laoe. Crawfurd said that Laoe was ‘probably some place
in Banjarmasin’, in the south-east of Borneo. Dictionary, s.v. Brunai-Town.
Mosto, though drawing attention to the Lao in Ortelius’ Theatrum orbis
terrarum and to the Lave in Mercator’s Atlas, situated in the south-west of
Borneo, concludes: ‘Forse corrisponde all’odierno paese di Laut Bumbu con
isola annessa, sulla costa sud-est di Borneo verso lava’. Pigafetta, p. 87. This
opinion is more or less shared by Robertson, Magellan’s Voyage around the
World, II, 199, by Denuc6, Pigafetta, p. 164, and by the Viscount de Lag6a,
Ferndo de Magalhaes, ii, 129. The early Portuguese maps mentioned above,
however, leave no doubt of the situation of Laue or Laoe on the south-west
CENTRAL ISLANDS
225
It is as large as the one above. It has pates\ it has many inhabi-
tants; they are all heathen. They trade with Java and Malacca,
and almost as much with Java as with Malacca. They have
diamonds; they have junks; gold in greater quantities than
Tanjompura'y they have merchants. It is a country with many
foodstuffs. The people are good. The merchandise mentioned
above is of value here; Kling cloth is of value. It is a good trad-
ing country. It does not obey anyone. These people are almost
like the Javanese, robust, valiant, manly. They have a great deal
of wax.
These six islands written down here surround the two above The
mentioned, three or four days’ journey from one another. They
are large islands with many inhabitants; they belong to heathens, d<Jlm
to pates\ they have junks, pangajavas. These islands all have 0/ Samper
gold; they have many | foodstuffs; some of them have cowries,
which are good merchandise. There is a great deal of black (Byiitam)
hellebore and in great quantities; that from these places is the and of
best that is known here. The men of these islands are warlike
and great robbers; they plunder in many places; people going and of
with merchandise take precautions. Those in the sea-ports are Adema*.
civilized; the other people are savages. These islands have an ^
infinity of mats of three or four kinds; they have a few rattans; °
they have dried fish, pitch, foodstuffs, many vegetables; they
have wines. These people sail to Java and Malacca.
coast of Borneo. Pigafetta’s drawing of the island of Burne shows that though
he had no idea of the size of the island, he placed Laoe on the south-west
coast. Mercator’s globe of 1541 also has Lao on the south-west coast of the
island, obviously following Pigafetta’s drawing. Pigafetta’s spelling of Laoe
shows that Pires was right when he wrote Laue and not ‘Lave’. See note on
Borneo, p. 132.
‘ Quedomdoam — In the enumeration above, Pires places Quedomdoam after
Laue, and so between the latter and Tanjompura. There is a small port called
Kandavangan, north of Cape Sambar, which may correspond to Pires’
Quedomdoam. Samper — must correspond to Sampit bay, east of Tanjong
Puting. Bylitam is the island Billiton, east of Banka. Cate- — Pulo Laut, an
island off the south-eastern part of Borneo, the most important place in which
is Kota Barn? Or does it correspond to Kutei, a large region in middle-
eastern Borneo, which appears as CAT AY on Berthelot’s map? Pamuca
corresponds to Pamukan or Pamkan bay, in the south-east of Borneo.
Pamocan on Berthelot’s map. Vdama — The transcriber first wrote Vdama,
but here spelled it Adema — one of his many and misleading mistakes. See note
p. 222.
The
Islands of
Macassar
(Maca-
9ar)>.
226 TOM^ PIRES
The Javanese go and buy junks in these peoples’ country, and
these people sell the junks when they go to Java. They are great
bowmen. They take a great many slaves and gold. The merchan-
dise mentioned in the other islands is of value in these lands,
black benzoin from Palembang is of value. Behind these islands
is the route to the Moluccas via Macassar and Buton; an
they will be described with Borneo {Burney) and the Luzon
{Lufoees).
The islands of Macassar are four or five days’ journey beyond
the islands we have described, on the way to the Moluccas. The
islands are numerous. It is a large country. One side goes up to
Buton and Madura and the other extends far up north. They are
all heathens. They say that these islands have more than fifty
kings. These islands trade with Malacca and with Java and with
Borneo and with Siam and with all the places between Pahang
and Siam. They are men more like the Siamese than other
races. Their language is on its own, different from the others.
They are all heathens, robust, great warriors. They have many
foodstuffs.
These men in these islands are greater thieves than any in the
world, and they are powerful and have many paraos. They sail
about plundering, from their country up to Pegu, to the
Moluccas and Banda, and among all the islands around Java;
* Macassar or Mangkasar is the name of the people inhabiting the extreme
end of the south-western peninsula of Celebes. The name served at first to
indicate the whole island, or the south-western peninsula, but it is now
limited to its chief port and capital. On one of his maps (fol. 36) Rodrigues
calls Borneo A gramde Jlha de maquafer (The great Island of Macassar),
which shows the confused knowledge most early cartographers had of the
Archipelago. The map of c. 1540 has os macafaes, L. Homem’s map of 1554
has os magasares, and Dourado’s atlases have os magamsares, in small script
like all the other ordinary names of places, just south of the equator; but the
island as a whole has no name. Mercator’s globe of 1541, following some
Portuguese map now unknown, has a long island running west-east called
Macace, south of Burneo and north of Sumbawa {Bima, etc.). Eredia’s map
(fol. 47V.) has the name MACAZAR given to the whole island. In this map
the island, fairly correctly situated but without showing the characteristic
long peninsulas, is divided into three regions: CELEBES regiam, in the north;
BVGVIS regiam, in the centre; MACAZAR regiam, in the south. The atlas
of c. 1615-23 has the island similarly represented and called MACASAR. In
Berthelot’s map of 1635 the whole island is already named CELEBES, and
only the south-western peninsula is called macassa.
MADURA
227
and they take women to sea. They have fairs where they dispose
of the merchandise they steal and sell the slaves they capture.
They run all round the island of Sumatra. They are mainly
corsairs. The Javanese call them Bugis (Bujuus), and the Malays
call them this and Celates. They take their spoils to Jumaia ( ?)
which is near Pahang, where they sell and have a fair con-
tinually.
Those who do not carry on this kind of robbery come in their
large vf&\\-hni\tpangajavas with merchandise. They bring many
foodstuffs: very white rice; they bring some gold. They take
bretangis and cloths from Cambay and a little from Bengal and
from the Klings; they take black benzoin in large quantities, and
incense. These islands have many inhabitants and a great deal of
meat, and it is a rich country. They all wear krises. They are
well-built men. They go about the world and everyone fears
them, because no doubt all the robbers obey these with good
reason. They carry a great deal of poison[ed weapons] and shoot
with them. They have no power against the junks which can all
defend themselves, but every other ship in the country they
have in their hands.
The island of Madura is a large island, it lies over against Java
and in sight of Grisee (Agacy). It has many inhabitants and a
king. This island of Madura is very extensive; they say that it
must be eighty to a hundred leagues in circumference. The Pate
of Madura is a knight, a very important person. He is a heathen.
He is called \blan}i\. He is married to a daughter of the Guste
Pate of Java. They say that Madura must have fifty thousand
fighting men. The best knights come from here and are greatly
feared in Java. The people of Madura say they are native
Javanese and they are very conceited. They have many heathen
priests, very esteemed persons. It is a country with many
lancharas. They are well-made men. The country produces
many foodstuffs. They have many horses. They use large
quantities of cloths in Madura, made in the island itself, and
others that come from outside which they wear. They have no
other merchandise, except rice and foodstuffs, and many slaves.
They have some gold from the trade carried on by the islands
already mentioned; and some of these islands border on Madura.
The
island of
Madura.
228
TOMJi PIRES
This island is at peace with Grisee. This island of Madura has
no Moors and they [the islanders] are our friends.
Fol. i 6 or. There is an infinity of other islands. There is no reason to
say more, only that all have gold and slaves and trade with one
o/alUhe another, and the small ones do this in the larger ones that ave
islands, been mentioned, and the larger ones trade with Malacca, an
Malacca with them, spending and bartering the merchandise.
Most of these islands have gold, and they also have corsairs an
robbers who live by that alone. The corsairs only sail in ig t
paraos and therefore they do not attack junks. And the corsairs
who are nearest to Pahang make in Pahang their trading ports,
and those near the Moluccas and Banda trade in Bima and
Sumbawa and Sapeh {Capeey, and those near us hold a fair and
trade in Am and in Arcat, Rupat. They bring countless slaves,
and therefore a large number of slaves are used in Malacca,
because they all go there on account of the great trade it has,
more than all the kingdoms and ports over here; and so it is
called the fortunate river. There are certainly great sailings from
here; no trading port as large as Malacca is known, nor any
where they deal in such fine and highly-prized merchandise.
Goods from all over the east are found here; goods from all over
the west are sold here. There is no doubt that the affairs of
Malacca are of great importance, and of much profit and great
honour. It is a land [that] cannot depreciate, on account of its
position, but must always grow. It is at the end of the monsoons,
where you find what you want, and sometimes more than you
are looking for.
* Sapeh is an inhabited place on the east coast of Sumbawa, which gives its
name to a bay and the strait between Sumbawa and Komodo islands. Rodri-
gues’ drawing (fol. 83) shows theporto de (ape, with several houses and trees,
at the eastern end of Simbaua; the map of c. 1 540 has Cape, though the name is
misplaced over the middle of the island. Bima is not a separate island, but just
a part of Sumbawa island. See note pp. 201-2.
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